Columbia's Stay at Home Order - What It Means For Us

As most of you probably know, yesterday the City of Columbia issued a Stay at Home order (Order 2020-03) mandating that everyone stay home unless on “Essential Business.” This is of course an effort to stem the spread of COVID-19 throughout our community and beyond, and is a measure we whole-heartedly support, even though it poses certain challenges for us.

First of all, we would like to say a personal and heartfelt thank you to Mayor Brian Treece and his colleagues for such strong leadership during this unprecedented time. We are lucky, as a community, to be in such good hands.

So what does the Stay at Home order mean for Skylark Bookshop? Well, we’ve read it very carefully and have been in touch with the leadership at both the Columbia Chamber of Commerce and the City in order to clarify a few points and get firm guidance as to what we can and can’t do. We’re still waiting to hear back on a few issues, but as of right now, here’s the deal.

Until we hear back from the City authorities, we will no longer be offering curbside pick-up. However we will still be offering free delivery within the city limits and can still mail books anywhere in the country at a reduced rate.

We continue to be inundated with orders and requests for book recommendations, and we’re so grateful to each and every one of you who has reached out to offer support. We’ll be back at work this morning (keeping our distance of course), getting your orders ready and dispatching them. Please keep ‘em coming - email us at mail@skylarkbookshop.com or call us at (573) 777 6990. (Although email is better: we only have one line and it’s usually busy!)

We’re hoping to get the go-ahead to do reinstate curbside pick-up again, but won’t do so unless and until we receive confirmation from the City that it’s OK to do so. We’ll let you know if and when that happens - we love to see your smiling faces!

Finally, we want to reassure you that we continue to take the utmost precautions within the shop to keep everything clean and everyone healthy. We wash our hands religiously and scrub surfaces obsessively. Every book that leaves our shop is wiped down and then wrapped up.

Thank you all for your continued support of our little shop. We’re humbled and grateful beyond measure. Oh, and without customers to worry about, Carrie has adopted a new kind of footwear which allows her to scoot about much more quickly: