‘Good Stuff’ coming to Key Center

By Danna Webster, KP News 

Dawn and Eric Kerkes have been making business plans for about three years. 

“We’re going to make cooking and being healthy convenient,” says Eric Kerkes about his new store in the KC Corral. When he saw a “For Rent” sign as he left his dentist’s office, he drove straight home and said to his wife, Dawn, “Let’s do it.”  

Putting the plan in motion and getting the store ready to open has taken a lot of work, patience and perseverance. After three months of remodeling projects and a donated cooler from the Home Texaco, they were ready in February to schedule the county’s next inspection, stock up the inventory and open their door.

“This is our big leap of faith,” Eric says of their decision to open a health food business in Key Center.

Catering to the community interests and needs for natural health products is one driving force behind the Kerkes’ goal to open their business. Another is the credit they give to the Bastyr Center for Natural Health for Eric’s recovery from a 1999 accident.

Kerkes grew up in Longbranch. He experienced the embrace of his hometown KP community when, on March 5, 1999, emergency aid rushed to his rescue. A Bobcat bucket had smashed his head, breaking over 20 bones including his jaw and eye socket. The rescue operation included an ambulance ride to Evergreen Elementary School and a helicopter flight to Harborview. Kerkes remained aware and conscious throughout the entire ordeal. But there was one thing that confused him. “I just couldn’t figure out why they had to cut my pants off for a head injury,” he says with a grin.

At Harborview, Kerkes learned his medical prognosis was poor. He was told he would not regain muscle control on the left side of his face, nor the ability to close his left eye, nor the ability to hear from his left ear. Walking was difficult due to his loss of a sense of balance. When he returned home, Dawn left her job to take care of her husband.

With word of the accident and its devastation to the Kerkes family livelihood, the KP community stepped in to help. A spaghetti feed at the Civic Center raised money.

“The Civic Center and the community helped us out… from losing our house … saved us, basically,” Kerkes says.

In April, Kerkes went to Seattle’s Bastyr University hospital. The university’s Website states that Bastyr is the largest natural health care facility in Washington; and, according to Kerkes, Bastyr is a nationally renowned alternative treatment center. 

“What they did for me helped a lot — dietary changes, acupuncture, positive reinforcement, herbal teas, vitamins and supplements,” Kerkes says.

After three months of treatment, on the Fourth of July, he was able to move the left side of his face.

“It was kind of a miraculous recovery,” he observes. He is convinced that the treatment and education from Bastyr deserves the credit.

The store will be a full-time family project. Dawn will run the store, and Eric will work there at every opportunity, but he will keep his job at Active Construction in Gig Harbor to “keep the finances coming in.”

Their fifth-grade daughter, Julia, says she plans to read and study about the products in order to “help people in the store after school.” Then she quickly adds, “After school, and after homework.” She says kids are interested in healthy pop-tarts, sodas, trail-mix and teas.

The Bastyr experience and Eric’s recovery drove the Kerkes’ determination to open JED’s Good Stuff. The support from their business neighbors in the KC Corral and all the messages in the store’s suggestion box give them encouragement.

“Thank everybody who has dropped off suggestions in the box,” says Dawn Kerkes. “There’s a lot of support out there. That’s what keeps us going!”

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