Bolton’s new Sherwin-Williams Paint Store is excited to make an impact in the community

By Rob Paul

Local businesses are the heart of a community, and that's clear in Caledon, but it hasn't been the easiest time during the pandemic. Now, imagine opening a new business during the lockdown. That's the situation the new Sherwin-Williams Paint Store in Bolton found itself in.

Now with the ability to have people back in the store, Bolton's Sherwin-Williams will host its official grand opening on Saturday, August 14 and the store's team couldn't be more excited.

Store Manager Dawson Merkley says it was a strange situation to be in trying to let the community know about them without physically being able to see them and transition to non-in-store services.

“We actually opened up at a really awkward time; we opened up on April 16—that was our first operational day,” said Merkley. “It was the day that we were reverted back to lockdown measures due to COVID. It was funny because we opened, but we couldn't let anyone in the store. It was a difficult situation for us.”

When they couldn't operate in a normal fashion, Merkley says they pivoted to curbside, but had to get creative with how they could help people pick the right paints.

“We provided curbside service, but it was a little more difficult because with paint everyone needs to come in to see the colours,” he said. “One of the solutions I came up with was to provide people with Fandex to take home to look at the colours physically in person. It's a completely different world looking at a colour on a screen vs. actually seeing it in person. We prioritize customer service and not being able to actually view colours and having people buy paint and maybe not having it look the same way as it did on a screen is something we didn't want to have happen.”

Not only has Sherwin-Williams been dealing with the effects of opening during the pandemic, but they're also still feeling an impact from a natural disaster that hit the paint industry hard.

“It's actually been a tough year for the industry because there's been a shortage on paint due to raw material constraint,” he said. “One of the resin manufacturing plants in Texas—which is where most paint suppliers get their raw materials from—have had major product shortages due to…the winter storm [that] destroyed the facility and all the pipes burst due to ice damage. There's been crews working 24/7 to repair the facilities but it's caused major shortages for all the major paint suppliers.”

Now that they're able to have in-store shopping again, and to operate a little closer to normal, Merkley and his team are thrilled to become recognizable faces in the community. The first step toward achieving that is with the grand opening Saturday in which they will kick-off their first initiative to give back to Caledon.

“I grew up in Caledon so to me it's always been about trying to make a difference in this community,” he said. “Not only do we want to succeed as a new business, but we want to engage and give back to this community too. One of the initiatives I sought out was to get in contact with Caledon Community Services so that $2 from every gallon we sell during the grand opening is going to be donated to Caledon Community Services.”

Along with the donations to Caledon Community Services as part of the opening, Sherwin-Williams will also being have a sale – though they wish they could do more, says Merkley, but circumstances with the pandemic have limited them.

“We're doing a paint sale as part of the grand opening with all paints being 40 per cent off—that includes paints, stains, and primers,” he said. “Normally we would be serving food too, but just with everything going on with COVID we're not going to be able to. But we're going to try and support food vendors in the area going forward. We actually had a contractors' grand opening last month where we bought the contractors who visited food with $15 credits to family-owned businesses that are next door to us. Normally we rent a food truck or get a local hockey or soccer team in the community to help us man a BBQ, but just with the chance of COVID we're focused on being safe. We're hopeful we can help save people some money with the sale though, we know a lot of people have been renovating homes during COVID.”

To be a successful business in a tight knit community, Merkley believes the most important thing is to do as much outreach to help where possible to contribute to the nurturing of the community. That's why he's excited to continue to plan and execute initiatives in Caledon as the world begins to return to normal.

“In the future, during the wintertime, we're planning to run either a toy drive or a food drive; we're going to see which will be more impactful to the community,” he said. “We want to do stuff like that all year round. Another thing we usually do is every year Sherwin-Williams has an initiative where they'll go and re-paint a homeless shelter or a camp, somewhere we can have a positive impact on the community. With COIVD, we didn't do it this operational year, but that's something we're looking forward to continuing in the following year. We're excited to see what we can do in the community going forward.”