The Idaho Falls business Winnie & Mo’s Bookshop was recently selected to be one of 500 recipients for a $10,000 Backing Small Businesses grant.

The grant “program supports economically vulnerable and under-resourced small businesses with community reach and/or cultural significance,” mainstreet.org said.

Winnie & Mo’s was founded by Whitney Holmes and Amanda Poitevin who both felt that “there needed to be a place downtown that encouraged reading and literacy and that we needed an independent bookstore,” Holmes said. The shop opened in 2021.

Holmes said the bookshop heard about the grant from the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corp.

The bookshop meets the criteria for the grant, “so I was hopeful (about winning), but I definitely didn’t think it was a sure thing,” Holmes said.

Winnie & Mo’s applied in March and discovered that the shop was chosen as a grant recipient in June.

Upon discovering that the bookshop won, Holmes said she “felt really excited. There are a lot of improvements that we want to do to the shop to make it more event friendly, and the grant will enable us to do those things.”

Although Winnie & Mo’s is a bookshop, it also hosts events for the community, such as open mic nights and book clubs. By improving the space, Holmes hopes to make the shop an even more welcoming environment for events.

Some of the plans include updating furniture and fixtures.

“One thing we’re going to do is get some new tables that are on wheels,” Holmes said. “We’re also making a big events board on our wall so people will be able to easily see … what’s coming.”

Other improvements that are being considered are new shelving for walls and bookcases and getting electrical work done, according to Holmes.

The bookshop is planning on hosting the same events but “having more capacity,” Holmes said.

Furniture that is more moveable will help facilitate this.

“(At) our open mic nights, sometimes we’ll have 30 people here, and so it’ll be really nice to be able to move things around so that it makes more space for people to sit,” Holmes said.

As well as being a shop, Holmes feels that Winnie & Mo’s is a “community space where people can come and gather.”

The Winnie & Mo’s is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays. It is located at 343 A St. In Idaho Falls.

For more information on Winnie & Mo’s and its events, go to winnieandmos.com.

To learn more about the Backing Small Businesses grant program, visit mainstreet.org/about/partner-collaborations/backing-small-businesses.