Redemptive Practices and Potential at Shaws

Shaw Orchards has proudly been selling fresh fruit in Stewartstown, PA for over 100 years. Though the family farm market is not Christian in name, operations are run ethically with excellence.

Starting out as a simple apple orchard in 1909, founder Calvin Shaw didn’t have explicit plans to start a redemptive business. Over the years, more crops were added to increase the offerings at the orchard. The growth was natural, and mainly focused on commercial opportunity, though it offered other positive results. For instance, new crops provided the community with greater diversity of fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables.

As it continued to grow, Shaws became a bigger blessing to the community. Pick-your-own apples, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, and pumpkins became fun opportunities for making family memories.  Between the high-quality food and fun experience in the orchard, Shaws became a staple in the community, positively impacting many lives.

Still, the business wasn’t planned or developed with a focus on redemptive potential. So while many redemptive elements are already in play, more untapped possibility is yet to be discovered. Right now, Shaw Orchard’s redemptive practices include: giving food donations to many organizations in the community including the local food bank, selling fruit at a farmer’s market in a food desert, treating customers and employees with great care, and exercising wise stewardship of the land and resources. The current approach to a Christian witness is to “show we are Christians by our love.

As powerful and important as these things are, Shaws has room to grow to more clearly point people to the person of Jesus Christ. To start, there is potential to organize, reframe, and build the donations into a more purposeful brand that intentionally fights hunger. This social impact will catch customer’s attention and fuel loyalty and passion for supporting the business. Additionally, employing more careful language that hints at and explicitly reveals Christ through the business could be powerful. This could be done by creating a social media for the orchard connecting creation and business to Jesus’ teachings, or even using more clear value-based language in the website. The possibilities are limitless.

After 111 years of farming, the day may finally be dawning when this orchard grows in a direction of a more fierce passion for exalting the name of its Creator by the power of His Spirit at work in the Shaw family.