The entire world “stopped” a year ago.

But many of the businesses and organizations across the globe could not.

A minuscule number of them didn’t have to deal with many changes, but a majority were forced to operate differently - some temporary and others permanently. Others were casualties of the pandemic and sadly would never reopen.

Don Edgar of R.A. Ahner Furniture in Lehighton said all you can do is be prepared.

“Until a certain phase, we were not allowed in someone’s house to deliver,” Edgar said. “We were doing curb delivery and putting it on someone’s porch. We could not take the chance and put something inside of someone’s house.”

If you’re thinking of ordering furniture today and picking it up tomorrow, think again. The demand for furniture is still through the roof, and Edgar experienced many delays.

“Our whole industry got this quick punch in the nose on how fast things were selling and people were ordering. I hate to use the word recovered, but the businesses who survived, recovered and saw orders like they never did before,” Edgar said.

“It makes you change how you order. And when you’re four months away, you’re trying to make a prediction on what will happen in four months. If four months from now the bottom falls out of the furniture industry, I’m going to have a lot of furniture.”

Consumers needed a place to sit at home, since they needed to spend a ton of time indoors due to the virus.

Bike demand surges

Rich Stianche, owner of Dn’A Bikes in Tamaqua, said it was a challenge during the beginning of the pandemic for his Tamaqua bicycle shop. Nobody was allowed inside during the beginning of the pandemic.

“That was a very trying time, since we had a shop full of new bikes and we weren’t allowed to let customers touch them or test ride. Unless they knew exactly what they wanted, we couldn’t sell them bicycles,” Stianche said.

“For other products, they had to call in what they wanted, pay for it over the phone, we would put the order together for them, and they would either come a few feet into the shop, or we would do curbside for them.”

Stianche said once the Tamaqua area moved into the “yellow phase” in May, one set of customers was allowed in the shop at a time. The shop fell under the transportation category and was deemed essential.

Things changed in the blink of an eye.

Stianche has been in the bicycle industry for over 20 years and said it was the most hectic 6- to 7-week period that he experienced. He ordered 50 bicycles in May 2020 and only received four of them as of March 2021.

“People were buying bikes faster than we could build them. … We sold out of our bicycle inventory by the end of June and have received less than 15 bikes total since then,” Stianche said.

The industry, like most others, was not prepared for either the huge influx of customers or the shutdown due to COVID-19.

“Inventory levels pretty much went to zero for any bicycles below $1,000. Once the new bikes were gone, customers changed their approach and went with getting their current or old bikes fixed up and repaired, so they could enjoy being outside since it was one of the few things they were told was acceptable.”

Public transportation

If you couldn’t find a bike, perhaps a bus was necessary.

“We’re considered an essential program. Our workers are considered essential. We were asked to do our best to keep as much running as we could - and that’s what we did,” said Dave Bekisz, executive director of the Schuylkill Transportation System.

Bekisz said at one point during the pandemic, the STS’s ridership was down about 60 percent.

“When things like that happened, we had to furlough some employees,” Bekisz said. “But I think the concerning part was for my own employees - at what point would we experience illness that we couldn’t put service on the road? Especially drivers. Fortunately, that did not happen to us.”

The STS still takes daily temperatures of its employees and does other health screenings. Social distancing and mask mandates are enforced. In fact, Union Station in Pottsville has been closed since last spring. Bekisz is hoping to reopen the STS’s main terminal in the near future.

“Not knowing what to expect was scary and was a day-to-day challenge - and still is,” Bekisz said. “I think that our employees of STS are heroes. They were a major part of us being able to continue service throughout this pandemic.”

Deli adapts

Caitlin Moyer Smith owns Cindy’s Deli in Lehighton. It’s been an exhausting year for her small business.

“I got into this weird survival mode where any day could be my last day,” Moyer Smith said. “It’s terrible to think that way, but you just didn’t know. I lived for the day, instead of the week, if that makes sense.”

Moyer Smith said it was a challenge to adjust to constant changes and regulations.

“All of my food is perishable - it’s not like I have dry goods,” she said.

“I needed to move it and I couldn’t afford to lose all of this stuff. I had to play that balance, but I’m getting out of that mindset a little more as things are getting more comfortable, but for me, there is just no confirmation that everything is going to certainly be OK.”

Cindy’s Deli had less foot traffic during the pandemic’s spike, but adapted to do many more deliveries. Moyer Smith said the deli typically delivers within the Lehighton borough, but residents from all over Carbon County were making the call.

“Not only were people ordering sandwiches, but it was also a different shift. The businesses that we normally would deliver to during the week went remote and I lost a lot of those in the beginning - delivery became very residential,” Moyer Smith said.

“To go from just sandwiches - all of a sudden it was milk, bread and eggs. I was doing grocery orders and I felt like Instacart. It was an interesting dynamic, and a lot of people were willing and preferred delivery.”

It’s certainly been a wild, unprecedented year for businesses of all sizes. Supporting local businesses is certainly more critical than it’s ever been before. The survivors have dealt with many restrictions and multiple shutdowns.

“After a year, there hasn’t been a lot of resources available to business owners, I feel,” Moyer Smith said. “I just got notice about a grant that’s open for us and the stipulations just to apply for that grant are huge. It shouldn’t have to be like this.”