Turning the page at a Waterloo storefront
Soul Book Nook making a difference in downtown Waterloo
WATERLOO -- Amber Collins has parlayed a love of reading into an emerging and growing enterprise in the former location of one of Waterloo’s oldest businesses.
In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, Collins opened Soul Book Nook in the 100 block of East Fourth Street. It’s the former location of Robin’s Surplus, a century-old military surplus store whose owners shuttered the shop in 2017.
“It was scary,” she said. But it was a leap of faith and an extension of her upbringing.
The mother of five grown children, the youngest a recent high school graduate, Collins is the granddaughter of a Rath Packing Co. worker. Her grandparents, raised in the South, grew their own produce to sustain the family.
“I honor and respect that whole generation that came up with the (Great) Migration from the South,” she said. “We had no idea what they had to go through.”
While Collins’s grandparents filled their family’s tummies, her mother filled her mind. “That’s where I got my love of reading,” she said. “She was the smartest woman I knew.” They bonded through books and reading and writing. Part of her youth was spent living with her mother above a prominent bookstore in Los Angeles, the Aquarian Workshop.
That experience, plus a nonprofit organization she had developed working with disadvantaged girls through the Waterloo schools, all led to a spiritual epiphany during COVID and the period of national protest and civic unrest following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“The spirit of God just dropped into my soul,” she said, realizing, ‘You love books; you’ve always loved books; and people have souls.’ I wanted to see the souls of people healed. I wanted to see our community come back together. I wanted to see the chaos end. And the hate. How could I use that in Waterloo – to erase the hate and create a platform to bring everyone into commonality?”
The answer was the inspiration for Soul Book Nook. “It’s our mission to be concerned about the souls of man,” she said. “That’s where I got the name from.”
She started small, until she built up her business to the point where she moved into her current space on East Fourth. “I had to keep believing,” she said. “In the great struggle, there was a great victory. Sometime you’re tested. I had to balance it by faith.”
She received some favorable exposure through public broadcasting and other outlets. She provided a lesson to her daughters: “No matter how difficult a dream is, go for it,” she said.
A large portion of her sales are online and cover a wide geographic area.
"I get calls from all over, ordering books from schools, businesses, organizations. Actually, that's what helps support this store remaining in Waterloo, are my online orders. I get orders from all the small towns.” She’s received orders from places like Muscatine and Tripoli, as well as Des Moines.
“The online orders of the small towns and outside Waterloo have helped to keep me local.," she said. And many of those who come into the store have heard sbout ,it online or in regional media.
"Those who support me are wanting to support an independent African-American store. And not only that, an African-American woman-owned independent store," Collins said. "I don't think they're swayed by the banning of books or the 'anti-woke' movement. Many of them are professionals. The know the books they want to buy.
“They want to teach their children diversity because they see such a movement against it,” Collins added. “The political attacks have actually caused an awakening to people realizing, 'I have to educate myself and my children.’ The more you attack something, the more you make others aware of it.
“They want to make sure they get books from the store. And not necessarily African-American books,” she said. “They want to support an African-American business." Initially, she said, “I saw a gravitation toward African-American historical novels or anything African American coming out of the pandemic,” branching out into titles of general interest.
She’s offered a number of in-store events for authors and a place for people to discuss and share literature.
“People see me as a business. But I’m a ministry. I’m ministering to a need in the community,” she said. “This is a place for people to come together – black, white, whatever as far as your color.
“I’m glad to see so many African-American businesses that are now in the community,” Collins said. “What I would like to see is for us to work together and really serve all people. I want to see us really get together, not exclude anyone. We shared in our community, we need to give back to that fundamentally as a people.
”We need to give back that idea of, ‘This is our community and this is our family.’ And I kind of see that,” she said. “I really want us all to embrace one another. I’m really here to serve.”
And to keep changing and adjusting as community needs warrant. “We have to continue transform – a metamorphosis, like a butterfly, to stay alive and stay afloat,” she said.
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