Support The Elderberry
Jan Wolfe, beloved owner of The Elderberry, is retiring! Long-time employees and managers of the shop, Meg Madden and Sydney Batson, are taking over, and they need your help to ensure that The Elderberry can continue to serve the community in 2025 and beyond.
The Elderberry is going through a big transition, and we’d love your support to help us reach our goals. We’ll be investing in updated tech for a smoother in-store shopping experience, an online store, redesigning the shop, hiring new employees, and more. Read on for a more detailed breakdown of how your donation will support us.
Here’s how your donation will support us:
Allow The Elderberry to Serve the Community From a Place of Resource and Abundance
We plan to increase staff wages and do the seemingly impossible: support ourselves financially while doing purpose-driven work that feeds our soul.
Estimated Initial Cost: 10K
New Online Store
We plan to create a beautiful online shop that brings the apothecary to you wherever you are.
Estimated Cost: 1K
We will refine our products, and share them with more people in the Charlottesville community and beyond.
We will be resubmitting all of our products to VDACs, refining the recipes, updating the labeling, and adding to the aforementioned online store.
Estimated Cost: 2K
New POS System, Internet, and Phone Plan
Some of you have been in the store waiting to check out while we reboot our glitchy POS system…We will be investing in a new register that will provide both a more easeful checkout experience and connect with our online store (a process that is tricky when you have about 500 different loose herbs, tinctures, and oils). We will also be upgrading our internet to support both the new POS and make for better quality class recordings.
Estimated Cost: 8K
We Will be Able to Research and Explore the Specific Needs of Our Community.
Especially following the closing of Rebecca’s Natural Food Store, we want to provide more products that meet the health needs of our customers
Two New Employee Hires
A new herbal associate to assist with product making as we ramp up production
A marketing specialist to help us engage with our community, share herbal education, and promote our products
Estimated Initial Cost: 20K
A More Enjoyable and Streamlined In-Store Shopping Experience
We will be making some tweaks to the in-store infrastructure to allow us to display more products while maximizing the space we currently have
Estimated Cost: 4K
Guest Speakers
We would love to host guest herbalists and health professionals from around the country to add to our herbal education programs
Estimated Cost: 3K
A Note From Jan Wolfe
“Transitions are almost always signs of growth, but they can bring feelings of loss. To get somewhere new, we may have to leave somewhere else behind.” - FRED ROGERS
Time to change it up!
To all of our wonderful customers, friends, and other supportive folks, it’s time for a change. Effective March 1, 2025 I will be transferring ownership of The Elderberry to the capable and enthusiastic leadership of Sydney Batson and Meg Madden.As you know, Meg and Sydney have been at the Elderberry for several years. They know the business of herbs and the delight of herbal energetics. Their creativity, knowledge, and experiences enhance The Elderberry’s core mission: to provide quality medicinal herbs and plant knowledge in support of our community.
Some recent changes in the store are the result of their ideas and have been both gratifying and productive. I know they will continue to bring fresh ideas and ways of doing things both to the store and the community
When starting The Elderberry, I had no idea how long it would last or how well it’d be received. My goal was for The Elderberry to be a source of quality medicinal herbs and herbal information to support and maintain better health in our community. Eleven years later it has proven its value: a place to be comfortable and be comforted.
My future plans? I’ll continue to provide herbal consultations at the store on an appointment basis. In addition, I’ll also offer limited apprenticeships at my house in North Garden. I’ll be doing some traveling with family in April followed by happily digging in my garden for uninterrupted periods of time.
A Note From Meg Madden
Dear beloved community,
Stepping into co-ownership of The Elderberry is a dream come true, and one that I never could have fathomed when I began my role as an apprentice six years ago. With Jan’s incredible support, as well as her unsurpassed skills as an employer, I have found a home at The Elderberry where I can root, flourish, practice reciprocity, and feed and be fed by my community.
It is with a joyful and humble heart that I step into this new role! I am delighted to have come full circle in my hometown, from being born and raised by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the incredible myriad communities nestled on their slopes, to a staggeringly magical profession that allows me to serve you, the people I love, as well as the land that raised me.
I believe the culture that’s been deeply tended for over a decade here at The Elderberry is not lost on you, our incredible customers, clients, and supporters. The Elderberry is a place of gentleness, of healing, of learning and teaching, and of love, and this is something that is the product of diligently maintained intentional work. I am dedicated not only to carrying this torch, but to using it to light candles, hearth fires, fireworks, bonfires, so that the warmth and healing generated by Jan and Heather’s initial spark so long ago continues to perpetuate and grow. I also quite recognize The Elderberry as its own being to be consulted, tended, and respected in its own right. This means that while change is of course inevitable during profound transitions, The Elderberry will remain unchanged at the core and all evolution will be in service to our mission of care.
I am so proud to have been asked to carry the legacy of this amazing place, and I do not take the responsibility lightly. I look forward to continuing to serve the people, as well as the plants and the land of our region, in the same spirit that Jan has for all of these years. My heart is full of gratitude and I am so excited to begin!
A Note From Sydney Batson
One fateful day in 2017 I walked into The Elderberry to shop for some herbs.
At that time, I was enrolled in a clinical herbalism program at Sacred Plant Traditions, a program taught by its founder Kat Maier, and Heather Wetzel, who partnered with Jan to start The Elderberry. I had also apprenticed at The Elderberry the preivous year. As one of Heather’s pupils, I was (and still am) in awe of her brilliance as a clinician. I also just thought she was…the coolest.
On that day, when I was shopping in the store, I came up to the counter to pay and Heather rung me up. She then asked me, quite nonchalantly, if I’d want a job working at The Elderberry. And I almost fell on the floor. Me?!?! Did Heather really just ask me? To work here? I hadn’t yet completed my training and I couldn’t imagine having the competence required to be a part of a real-deal apothecary. But apparently Heather did…and I did indeed end up working at The Elderberry in the spring of 2018.
To this day, I still have to pinch myself sometimes when I think about the fact that I get to “work” in a place like The Elderberry. A real-deal apothecary. A true community resource. A place of healing. A place where I can share my passion with a total stranger or with our beloved regulars. A place where we keep an altar in the back and where our cleaning protocols involve not just vacuuming and mopping, but smudging and ceremony.
This is the place where you can come in for indigestion, PMS, a cough that won’t go away…or a heartbreak, anxiety, or grief…and we’ve got something for you. We’ve got herbs, of course, and we also have compassion; we deeply listen; and we really, really, care.
The Elderberry is my second home, and I am honored to answer the call to steward it. I give a deep bow of gratitude to Jan, Heather, Kat, and the spirit of The Elderberry; and I wave a hello to all of you who I have the pleasure and privilege of serving.