Take a stroll along Main Street in Dresden and you can feel new life and energy.
Main Street is where small-town America grew up. It’s the heart of countless towns and villages across the country — where entrepreneurs, craftspeople and business owners have poured their souls into their visions for a better life.
There’s a ripple effect along Main Street in Dresden — or 43821 — as Dresden & Company begins its third year as a direct sales business, offering handcrafted baskets along with a line of other products with an American-made focus.
Weavers ply their craft in the Dresden & Company Workshop, creating baskets that will be used in homes across America. They’re doing what they love and signing their name on each of their creations. They welcome visitors who stop in to be mesmerized by the quick and almost hypnotic way they can turn splints of hardwood maple into baskets.
Just a couple of blocks down the street and a stone’s throw from the World’s Largest Basket, Dresden & Company’s team is getting used to its new offices in the Dresden & Company Welcome Center at 416 Main Street. They’re greeting showroom visitors who can touch and experience everything in the company’s lineup of products. Beautiful vignettes are there for everyone to see and imagine in their homes. A sign on the front asks visitors to “Stop in and see the new Dresden & Company.” The once vacant building is alive again and just finished serving as the center for the D&Co. annual convention.
Visitors get a sense of what this company is about and know what they want to buy from their Proprietor when they get back home. Or maybe they decide then and there to sign up to be a Pro themselves. They also can purchase a Dresden Basket there or at a number of other stores in town, knowing that a portion of the proceeds goes to the upkeep of the World’s Largest Basket. Restoration on that basket was just recently completed.
A new deli has opened on one end of the street and shop owners all along the way are thrilled to see visitors to the town in ZIP code 43821.
Real Estate Broker Bobbi Lepi, whose firm Lepi & Associates LLC Real Estate Services has an office on Main Street, recently spent a day visiting with shop owners up and down the street.
“I have to tell you … it was the best experience I have had in Dresden in a long time,” she said.
“They love what they are doing and where they are doing it, and why they are doing it, and it made me so proud to be a part of this community,” she said.
Bobbi is a Founding Team Leader with D&Co. Her husband, Jim, is D&Co.’s founder. You can hear the excitement in his voice when he talks about this young company, his love for Main Street and the potential for growth throughout 43821.
Come visit. The welcome sign is out.
