For sixty years, Page & Palette has been more than a place to buy books. It has been a gathering place where readers meet writers, ideas become conversations and neighbors come together.
Through our foundation, community reads, literacy programs, author events, fundraisers and local partnerships, we have worked to make Fairhope a stronger, more connected community. Some programs became annual traditions. Others grew beyond us and found new homes. All began with the same belief: bookstores matter because community matters.
Explore the people, programs and stories that grew from Page & Palette.
Community
Page & Palette’s
Good Life Foundation
For sixty years, Page & Palette has been more than a place to buy books. It has been a gathering place where readers meet writers, ideas become conversations and neighbors come together.
Through our foundation, community reads, literacy programs, author events, fundraisers and local partnerships, we have worked to make Fairhope a stronger, more connected community. By 2016, the Page & Palette Foundation and Good Life Foundation had contributed more than $360,000 to local schools, while creating programs and events that continue serving the community today.
Some programs became annual traditions. Others grew beyond us and found new homes. All began with the same belief: bookstores matter because community matters.
Explore our community story, beginning with The Good Life Foundation.
One Town One Tale
a community read
Inspired by community reading programs such as Chicago’s One Book, One Chicago, Page & Palette launched One Town One Tale in 2005 to bring Fairhope together through one exceptional book.
The program addresses aliteracy by encouraging people who know how to read to make reading an active and enjoyable part of their lives. Each selection gives the community a shared story to explore, discuss and experience together.
One Town One Tale continued as a Page & Palette tradition until the pandemic interrupted the program. Plans are underway to bring it back, with new books worth reading and new conversations worth sharing.
Explore One Town One Tale
Fairhope Local
Page & Palette owner Karin Wilson founded Fairhope Local in 2014 as an educational and promotional campaign encouraging residents to support Fairhope’s locally owned businesses.
The initiative grew from the Fairhope Shop Local campaign Wilson began in 2005 with the message “Invest in the Nest.” Its purpose was to explain that shopping locally does far more than support one merchant. Independent businesses create jobs, contribute to schools and nonprofit organizations, keep more money circulating within the community and preserve the qualities that make Fairhope unlike anywhere else.
Wilson worked alongside a group of local entrepreneurs and community advocates who helped shape and launch the initiative, including her twin sister Kelley Lyons, Tricia Niemeyer, Alicen Fowler, Allison Ellis, Emily Sommerville, Dawn Beasley and Judd Gillespie.
Advice Booth
Sonya Bennett and Nancye Jennings were close family friends, devoted supporters of Page & Palette and two women whose wisdom Karin deeply valued. Nancye’s connection reached back to Karin’s childhood, when she worked for Betty Joe “Granny” Wolff at the bookstore.
During a difficult period for independent bookstores, the three met in Latte Da to discuss ways Page & Palette could become more sustainable. They looked so serious that a customer asked what they were doing. They were solving the world’s problems.
That conversation inspired a real version of Lucy’s five-cent advice booth from Peanuts. Karin had the booth built and, in a fitting coincidence, it was painted by a young artist named Lucy, the daughter of longtime friend Lisette Norman.
Sonya and Nancye soon began offering advice for a nickel. Visitors brought questions ranging from paint colors to relationships, family estrangements and life changing decisions. With humor, compassion and a genuine gift for listening, the women helped people feel heard, encouraged and a little less alone.
The Advice Booth became a beloved Page & Palette tradition and another expression of what an independent bookstore can offer its community. Sonya