Under glossy wooden rafters, the top floor of Goodrich Hall will soon be home to a bustling market — featuring bubbling Ramune, tangy guava candies, and nourishing hair masks. Set to open in September 2025 and share the space occupied by the Free Store, Ephelia’s Roots, a student-run convenience store, aims to make comfort food, hair care, and skincare products accessible to minority students at the College. Before it launches in the fall, Ephelia’s Roots will open a pop-up store in the Paresky Center on May 2. The store’s founders will also take over managing responsibilities at the adjacent Free Store.
As their first fall semester at the College came to a close, Joyce Li ’28 and Olivia Thornton ’28, who met during the Summer Science Program, said they found themselves longing for the comforts of home — a feeling that sparked the idea for the store.
“I was like, ‘Oh, I really crave this,’ or ‘I really want my hair done, but I don’t have the supplies, or they’re not going to come in time with Amazon shipping,’” Thornton recalled.
Li added that she’s enjoyed trying foods from her friends’ cultures, like the Indonesian instant noodle brand Indomie. As Thornton noted, however, this cultural exchange is made difficult by the College’s location. “As freshmen, we don’t have cars,” she said. “It’s hard to get off campus in the first place to get even just basic hair care necessities. And I don’t think I realized that coming on campus, I’d have to stock up on hair supplies or stock up on certain foods that I love that are easy to get back home.”
The pair realized how helpful it would be to have a campus store stocked with convenience products. “We’re like, ‘Well, we don’t have one, we might as well make one,’” Thornton said.
To begin creating their store, Li and Thornton met with Hope Ross Gibaldi, the ’68 Center for Career Exploration’s director of entrepreneurship and innovation. “[Ross Gibaldi] served as our advisor in a way, because she had so much knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship,” Thornton said.
Ross Gibaldi appreciated the project’s potential to impact the campus community. “Williams is a predominantly white institution, and their experience as minority entrepreneurs and wanting to create a sense of culture and community on our campus is a really beautiful thing and a huge asset to the campus community and to the Williamstown community,” she said.
Ross Gibaldi recommended that Li and Thornton apply to several funding programs at the College, including entrepreneurship funds and the Career Access Fund (CAF). The pair also worked with Ross Gibaldi during the SPARK! Williams Idea Competition, where Li and Thornton fine-tuned their business proposal in March. Li and Thornton have have already received $750 from the career center’s entrepreneurship fund, Li said.
Thornton added that they’re also sourcing funding from alums. “We’re meeting with [WAAAN], the AAPI alumni group, and then we’re meeting with the Black alumni group, EBAN, and they’re also going to help promote this to alumni so we can get more funding,” she said.
Aside from consolidating funds to launch the store, Li and Thornton had to secure a location for Ephelia’s Roots. “Originally we wanted to be on Spring Street, but the feasibility of this is extremely difficult,” Thornton wrote in a follow-up email to the Record. “We met with many different people, including our advisor Hope and Sam [Boyden] from OCL to see what spaces on campus we could use, and Goodrich was the easiest space that we came up with.”
Boyden, the Office of Campus Life’s associate director for student centers and events, who is responsible for programming in Goodrich, allowed Ephelia’s Roots to use the space. “He said [that] as long as it’s fine with the Goodrich [Coffee Bar] managers and the Free Store managers, we can take over that space,” Thornton said. With everyone on board, the space was officially theirs.
Ephelia’s Roots will be located next to the Free Store, a hub of accessible resources like clothes and school supplies created by the college’s chapter of Young Democratic Socialists of America, Williams Mutual Aid, and the Center for Learning in Action.
In addition to managing Ephelia’s Roots, Li and Thornton will oversee the Free Store. “[Most of] the Free Store managers are graduating this year, and they said they would be happy to give us responsibility [and] ownership over the Free Store,” Li said. They’re planning to split the current area of upper Goodrich that is used for the Free Store into two separate establishments — one for the Free Store, and one for Ephelia’s Roots.
Using the funding they’ve obtained, Li and Thornton hope to purchase its first stock and open at the beginning of the fall semester. “Everything’s probably going to be below five dollars,” Thornton said. The Free Store, however, will remain completely free.
“We’re also aiming to not mark up things,” Li added. “We’re just trying to turn a profit to pay for student labor, where we’ll have a worker in the store to handle business transactions and also just to buy more products. But no one is profiting from this store. This is a store for students, and it will always be for students.”
In addition to funding and a location, Li and Thornton had to come up with a name for their store. “We wanted a name that emphasized the purpose, allowing Williams students to feel connected with their ‘roots’ (heritage and culture) through providing different foods and goods not easily accessible on campus,” Thornton said in a follow-up email.
Li and Thornton aim to support not only minority groups on campus, but also in the greater community by purchasing from businesses that support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) measures. “We’re trying to promote people to go to more minority-owned groups,” Thornton said.
At the moment, they plan to acquire products from local businesses, like Brazzucas Market in Pittsfield, as well as stores in Thornton’s hometown of Twinsburg, Ohio, like Bella Roots Beauty Supply.
Students and faculty have already expressed strong interest in the store, with over 80 people responding to a Google Form soliciting product suggestions, according to Li and Thornton. They have also received feedback from several graduating seniors. “They have said, ‘This is such a good idea. We wish this had happened when we were here, but we’re really glad that you guys are starting this,’” Thornton said.
Janel Neil-Blake ’28, a friend of Thornton, is particularly excited about the convenience of Ephelia’s Roots. “What interested me the most is that they’re trying to bring a sense of belonging home to Williams that a lot of us miss from being home,” she said. “The nearest supermarket that has international foods or anything of that sort is literally in Albany, which is an hour away.”
“I have a lot of friends who like to make this thing called Indomie, and we cannot necessarily find the exact type of Indomie at Walmart,” Neil-Blake said. “Hair products, like bonnets or oils … for Black students here, is a little bit more difficult to find at your nearest Walmart or just around town.”
Ephelia’s Roots also caught the eye of Audrey Robinson ’28, who heard about the store through social media. “I think it just gives a chance for everyone to feel equally at home or taken care of, because they have the stuff they need to feel comfortable,” she said. “And currently there’s a lot of inequity with that.”
While Ephelia’s Roots is directed primarily toward minority students, Li and Thornton hope that the entire campus can enjoy it. “This market is kind of popping the idea of the ‘purple bubble’ and just showing people that we don’t have to be stuck in a predominantly white institution, and we have this cultural hub to share,” Li said.
Ross Gibaldi has high hopes for the project’s success. “To me, when I’m working with them, it’s not a question of if, but a question of how, in terms of how to get this thing off the ground,” she said. “They are really passionate about making a difference on campus, which is really, really beautiful, and I think it’s our responsibility and role as staff and people working here on campus to support students with amazing ideas like this.”
As the opening date approaches, students shared some of the products that they’re most excited to purchase from Ephelia’s Roots: Thornton is looking forward to mango nectar, Li can’t wait for Buldak carbonara ramen. Robinson hopes to find tortillas that don’t fall apart, and Neil-Blake is hoping to acquire hair oils and braiding hair.
More than just the products, though, Neil-Blake is confident that Ephelia’s Roots will play an influential role in strengthening community at the College. “I think it’ll [bring] the community even closer in terms of minority students, because then we have something to look to and be excited about coming to our school,” she said. “Sometimes we lack that.”
