For a couple of years, Micayla Ryan, 32, and her husband, Eric, parents of five, have met weekly with other young parents in a family prayer group in Goodhue, a town of 1,250 located about 14 miles south of Red Wing in the southeast corner of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
They meet in a community space on the main floor of a renovated former bank made available to them by the owners of the building, Goodhue natives Pete and Regina Poncelet.
The Ryans and other parents appreciate the toys and books available for their children while they meet, and the Poncelets watching their children so they can freely hold their discussions. Regina usually joins the parents’ group afterward to offer her insights on “how to raise our families in the faith,” Micayla Ryan said.
“They’re a great couple,” she said. “And they are really doing the hands and feet of Jesus’ work.”
The Poncelets, both 57 and self-described high school sweethearts at Goodhue High School, have a track record of making changes to improve the lives of their neighbors. For 18 years, the couple owned a gas station and convenience store with another family. During that time, they replaced the store with a new one.
They lived about five miles outside of Goodhue when they first owned the gas station and store. Later, they moved to town, within a stone’s throw of the businesses. Pete was able to work mostly from home from either home base. Regina taught fifth graders part-time at the local elementary school when their five children were growing up, balancing work and family life, she said. Now their children are aged 21 to 32.
Regina left her teaching job in 2017. The couple sold their share of the business in 2020. Parishioners of Holy Trinity in Goodhue, Regina and Pete prayed about what was next. When they learned the owner of the town’s only grocery store was retiring Oct. 12, 2022, the Poncelets turned to that familiar place: prayer.
“We had been praying about what we were supposed to do, and we jumped on it (the store),” Regina said. The couple wanted the town to have a grocery store, and they wanted to “just enhance the community,” she said. They also knew that “whatever we wanted to do would be a way we could show our love.”
The Poncelets took ownership Oct. 17, 2022, and called it the Goodhue Market. They closed the store for 18 days in January to remodel — with new coolers, coats of paint, flooring and checkout stands. The Poncelets “rearranged things a bit,” Regina said. “We’re there every day … stocking and clerking and ordering.”
Recalling a reflection by Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester on “How does God want us to show our love?” Regina said she and her husband felt the store “was a way for us to do that.”
“I know it sounds kind of strange at a grocery store, but to show love for other people,” she said.
The Poncelets also are quick to describe the hard work of family members and neighbors who pitched in to remove, and later restock, all canned and packaged goods, to facilitate the renovations.
Personal touches include messages on two signs painted by a Goodhue resident. One near the baked goods includes a quote from Matthew 6:11: “Give us this day our daily bread.” The second sign, over the produce aisle, quotes St. Teresa of Kolkata: “Love is a fruit in season at all times.”
While it might take courage to post a Bible passage on the store’s wall, Regina said the couple didn’t hesitate. “That’s important to us,” she said.
Regina said she’s had conversations with customers that lead her to pray for them, such as when she learns a baby is born to a customer’s family or someone expresses worries while in the store.
When Regina works Sundays, she finds herself telling customers, “Have a blessed day.” “And a lot of times they turn around and say, ‘You, too,’” she said. “I’m trying to get more comfortable doing that, or saying, ‘I’ll pray for you’ if they bring up something,” she said.
Repurposing a second building
The Poncelets bought the former bank building in 2014, which was built in 1901 and a few doors down and across the street from the store. The couple remodeled that space, too, and kept much of the original woodwork and details. They live on the second floor.
The couple opened the main floor as a community space for baby and wedding showers, homeschoolers’ plays, school groups, a church youth group, two Bible study groups and that “young family prayer group.” Regina teaches faith formation classes there, something she has done for her parish for most of the past 30-plus years.
The first floor has “a coffeehouse feel,” Regina said. It includes beautiful, decades-old solid wood chairs and tables and repurposed elements from the former bank, such as single-serving coffee available in a wood-slatted section under a counter that once held deposit and withdrawal slips. A quilted wall hanging behind it adds to the room’s warmth.
They charge a fee for groups to rent the facility, but some days, “women come in and just play cards, so we don’t charge for that,” Regina said.
A children’s play area includes toys to keep them busy while parents are at Bible study or other group activity, and Regina and Pete are quick to step in to help entertain the children so their parents can concentrate on discussing Scripture. It’s one way the couple can help support marriages, which leads to stronger families, Regina said.
Seven families meet regularly in the young family prayer group, Micayla Ryan said. They bring about 20 children with them. For the first three meetings after the group started, women from Holy Trinity brought dinner to the families before the group discussed “a formation topic,” she said.
The community space is very welcoming, she said, and the Poncelets are flexible on building availability. The “tons of tables” help the group spread out and organize boxes when they assemble items for a “Christmas shoebox project.”
When the group started, the couples began by praying a decade of the rosary. The children were part of that, too, Micayla Ryan said, and some built the confidence to lead it.
Pete converted the former, large walk-in vault at the back of the bank building into a cozy, carpeted reading room with soft, upholstered chairs and a coffee table in the middle. Books fill each of six shelves on three walls, many from his stash of books on history and religion.
Independent business owners take a risk, Regina said. It is a leap of faith, but they want to “make a difference and be a good neighbor.” After praying, she said, the Poncelets trust that “this is what God wants us to do.”
