by Allan Appel | Mar 2, 2011 8:32 am

(14) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Business/ Economic Development, Dwight

Anne Demchak used to slice bologna and wrap meats at East Haven’s Stop & Shop. Today she’s the manager of the new Stop & Shop replacing Shaw’s on Whalley Avenue. She vowed it will be staffed and open by Easter.

Demchak formally introduced herself to 40 attendees at the Dwight Community Management Team meeting on Tuesday night and presented the first evidence: to insure the 135 to 140 new hires will be very local, no newspaper ads will be placed.

Instead, an old fashioned A-Frame “Now Hiring” sign will soon be going up near the sidewalk on Whalley.

“We are hiring at the site on the second floor, [even] as construction goes on. Maybe [as soon as] next week,” she said

After nearly seven months of negotiations, Stop & Shop announced early in February that it will open at the old Shaw’s site. That news brought cheer to a neighborhood that had become a “food desert” after Shaw’s left town. Click here to read that story.

Most of the questions Demchak fielded at Tuesday night’s meeting at the Dwight police substation pertained to employment.

Edgewood Alderman Marcus Paca inquired if the workers will be unionized. The answer: all Stop & Shop workers belong to Local 371 of the United Commercial Food Workers.

Fellowship Place’s Mary Guerrera wanted to know if Demchak would consider hiring graduates of the social service agency’s vocational training. Answer: Yes.

Demchak (left in photo with Dwight neighbor Kate Walton) explained that all the 135 to 140 new hires will work part time at first. It’s the Stop & Shop way, with those aspiring to make the store more of a career earning themselves promotion to full time.

Former Shaw’s employees will not directly get preference in the hiring process.

However, Demchak suggested that many of these people have already gone to work at other Stop & Shop locations. If they want to transfer back to Whalley Avenue, certainly their experience will stand them in good stead to be hired over newcomers.

“You apply online first” at the Stop & Shop website, she said. (Click on store #2633—when it shows up on the site. It wasn’t there yet Wednesday morning.)

“If they come in off the street, we’ll have a computer there,” Demchak said, so non-computer people will not be at a disadvantage.

Community Plans

Among examples of the community-mindedness she intends to bring, Demchak said, “coded-out” food like meats, still good but no longer able to sold, will be delivered across the street to the St. Luke’s soup kitchen.

Demchak discussed the store’s “A Plus School Rewards” program. If you sign your school up, every purchase you as an individual shopper make earns points for the school. Those points translate into charitable dollars.

“You can get $1 to $2,000 for your school to buy computers,” she said by way of example.

“Having Stop & Shop in New Haven is a very very big deal,” said Greater Dwight Development Corporation Executive Director Linda Townsend-Maier, the lead negotiator in the deal that brought Stop & Shop to the shopping plaza Whalley and Orchard. Her group is the landlord. “I want everyone to shop there and invest in this economic asset.”

Demchak also said that Stop & Shop will set up a council to meet with local leaders to see how the store can best serve. To start with, she said, “we’re going to have foods for every ethnicity, every religious group.”

She said the store will open every day from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. In deference to the neighborhood, no delivery trucks will grind and squeal except during the daytime hours.

“My heart’s in this community,” said Demchak. She most recently served as manager of the Stop & Shop on Amity Road, where many former Shaw’s shoppers migrated and whom she’s gotten to know.

The new Whalley store will have a People’s Bank but no pharmacy. Over the year after the Shaw’s closing, people migrated elsewhere for that service.

Also, the bottle recycling area will be upgraded and fully staffed, Demchak promised. She said that a hose with warm water to clean out bottles will help. She promised to find a way for returners of a handful of bottles at a time to express their way out and not have to wait for people bearing boxfuls.

She promised that she or her team will attend every future management team meeting as well as go out to the PTOs of the new Amistad school and others to tell them about A Plus, nutrition, and other programs the store is offering.

“It’ll be nice to have the place lit up at night,” she added.