Residents planning employee sendoff

AUSTIN — Area residents are planning a sendoff for Austin’s Target and its employees.

Volunteers who unsuccessfully tried to convince Target representatives to keep the Austin location open past Feb.1, 2015, are now planning a goodbye event at the end of the month for the store’s roughly 80 employees.

“We’re really blessed that we got the staff that we did at the Target store,” Danielle Nesvold said. “They ran it in such a way that it made it an enjoyable experience to shop there.”

Nesvold and other volunteers plan to hold a rally of sorts at the end of the month to give thanks to the Target employees.

Nesvold and dozens of residents organized the “Save the Austin, MN Target from closing” Facebook page to keep the Austin Target open after company officials announced last November that the Austin location was one of 11 stores to close in February 2015. On Nov. 13, 2014, the group held a public meeting with an estimated 200 local residents calling for the store to remain open.

Though volunteers sent economic data, hundreds of emails and tried to meet with Target officials, corporate representatives still said the store’s closing was final.

“It’s a pretty strong sign when they’re sending a goodbye coupon to you,” Nesvold said.

Now volunteers are recognizing the employees at the Austin Target who they say made the store feel more like a mom and pop store than a big box retailer.

“They treated us like we were family,” Nesvold said.

A date for the sendoff has not been set. For more information, look to the “Save the Austin, MN Target from closing” Facebook page.