Tanya Murray and Tyler Trask, the brother and sister team who own Granite Falls IGA and 2023 IGA Retailers of the Year, have found a unique way to blend business with community service, creating a hometown grocery store that’s more than just a place to shop. Through the Granite Falls IGA Kids' Club, the store hosts seasonal events like pumpkin painting, Santa photos, and other hands-on kids’ activities throughout the year, making holiday traditions more accessible to their rural Washington community.
Murray and Trask's family has run the store for over 30 years and sees these events as an extension of their legacy — one that values giving back as much as growing the business. By pairing community engagement with strategic sales events, Granite Falls IGA has built a model that not only drives foot traffic but also strengthens its role as a pillar of the community.
“My dad bought the store from my uncle in 1993, so we’ve been running it for over 30 years. My brother and I currently are second-generation owners and operators,” Murray added. “I started in this business as a child — I was at my father’s heels, watching him serve his community in so many ways.”
Community service has been part of the family’s ethos since they first took over the store’s operations.
“It started, really, with the idea of continuing the classic grocery tradition of offering free cookies right out of our bakery. So, they come shop, go meet our bakery department, and they hand them a free cookie.”
From there, Murray and the team have expanded the store’s service to focus on the community’s needs. The Granite Falls IGA Kids' Club does just that, hosting seasonal events year-round. In October, they hosted an in-store Halloween pumpkin painting event. For one dollar, kids could pick out a pumpkin and decorate it inside the store.
“We order two giant pallets of sugar pumpkins, and send out marketing materials to the community,” said Murray. “Last year, we had a participation of about 200 families in a three-hour period, which was a huge increase from the previous year.”
Shoppers can find the upcoming events and details (cost, time, etc.) on the Granite Falls IGA Facebook events page.
In December, they hosted free Santa photos in store to bring holiday cheer. Soon, they'll host their annual Easter Egg Hunt and Mother's Day event, where kids can plant a flower in a pot and paint it.
“Barbecues, animal encounters, cake decorating, dinosaur encounters, Disney characters,” are additional Kids' Club events offered throughout the year.
“The reason we do these family events is we know that we are rural locations. We are more than just a grocery store to our community — we’re more of a community center. These events offer budget-friendly options that give the kids that holiday magic without going 30 or 40 minutes away to the nearest pumpkin patch where the activities may be cost-prohibitive for families whose budgets are really tight this year.”
“We know with inflation it’s been really tough for families, especially this last year,” Murray added, explaining the store’s focus on engaging children and families. “We want to bring families together because IGA is a family. We consider our community members part of a bigger family.”
“It’s really just expanding on this idea of your independent grocer as part of your extended family,” she concluded.
While community engagement is the primary purpose for these events, Murray recognizes that community service alone isn't enough to create a thriving business. That’s why she, Trask, and the store team have created an innovative business model focused on being an events-driven store. Community events, like pumpkin painting and Santa photos pair well with seafood and truckload sales. “Those do drive traffic to our store, they do drive our sales, and that is an essential part of our sales-business model," she said.
“These two event-driven models, one that’s driving sales to increase traffic and one that’s driving community engagement, really work together to constantly remind our customers throughout the year to come visit us — whether it’s just to paint a pumpkin or to get a rock-bottom price on a slice of meat — to come and see us, and to remind them that we’re here for them in more ways than just offering groceries.”
Combining community events with sales events has created a unique niche for Granite Falls IGA. “We think it’s a unique opportunity to not just offer value on our shelves but also offer value to our community that goes far beyond price.”
Offering options locally and ensuring that holiday traditions remain accessible for all families is key to the Granite Falls IGA mission. So is reminding customers of the value provided by their local grocer, not only for exclusive prices, but also as a place for community gatherings.
Recognizing the needs of their community is essential to Murray and Trask's vision of service. The team stays in close contact with service organizations in their community, particularly the Boys’ and Girls’ Club and their local food bank.
“We make sure we have meetings with them regularly, and we really touch base with our community to see what it needs, and what it can benefit from, and we tailor our events and our donations and our community engagement around what the current needs of our community are, so it’s ever-evolving,” Murray said.
With this, Murray identifies flexibility and being closely connected to the community as key strengths of independent grocers. “I think it’s our superpower as independents,” she declared.
“We can’t always win on price — it’s just a fact; we can’t always win on product availability — we have limited square footage in our store; but where we win on an everyday basis is by being flexible.”
One example of this flexibility is in Granite Falls IGA’s ability to quickly respond to an urgent request from their food bank. Last year, demand for turkeys suddenly became much higher than expected, and the food bank reached out to Granite Falls IGA for help. While the store usually provides holiday meal bags to the food bank, they were able to quickly pivot, adding a roundup option at their registers, creating coupons for their customers to donate, and sourcing three hundred turkeys, all within days.
“I don’t think that there are many businesses that you can react in such a timely fashion to the needs of your community, and I think we need to lean into that as independents,” Murray said. “Whether it’s a sales-driven idea or a community-service or donation-driven idea, I think the idea that we can come up with a plan and execute it in a very quick turnaround, is something that independents should lean into, and consider one of their superpowers, and what sets us apart.”
“These family and community-driven events, we get the opportunity to show our customers, whether they’re loyal customers that have been with us for the last 30 years, or whether they’re new to our community, we get to really show them that IGA Hometown Proud spirit, and showcase who we are as a local grocer, highlighting our values of service and community that drive us every day to get up and serve in this industry,” Murray said.
She continued, “I think leaning into this idea of, you know, being Hometown Proud, and using these small opportunities to engage with your community, and remind them of that, it really shows off and highlights the very best of independent grocery.”