Marcia Lawrence, owner of Ellen Plumb's City Bookstore, Emporia, Kan., has received a $10,000 Jumpstart grant through a partnership between Emporia State University and the Kansas Department of Commerce, the Emporia Gazette reported. The grant will allow Lawrence to move ahead on the purchase of an Espresso Book Machine. The check was presented at the bookstore last Wednesday by ESU School of Business dean Ed Bashaw.
Bashaw said he met Lawrence shortly after he took his position at ESU last year: "When I first got here, I wanted to meet a lot of small business people and just hear what their stories are and talk about--what are the things School of Business could do."
Lawrence expressed her gratitude to the crowd of community leaders, readers and authors for their continued support of the bookstore. "A lot of you have been a part of the bookstore development from the very, very beginning," she said. "Ellen Plumb's is a community gathering place, and having the funds to be able to purchase a machine that enhances literacy and enhances creativity and celebrates writing and reading is about the best use I can think of for $10,000." She hopes to have a used Espresso Book Machine up and running in the store as early as next spring.