14 / matters magazine / fall 2026
eclectic mix of products connected
by one simple criterion: Salaskar
liked them. “My store was always a
collection of my favorite items,” she
says. “Anything that I liked and I
loved, I wanted to have in the store.”
Not long after Salaskar moved
Kimaya Kama to Maplewood, Onu
ma stopped by to welcome her to
the neighborhood. The two women
crossed paths, shared customers and
came to know one another as fellow
female business owners. “I always
got along with Susan and really liked
her,” Salaskar says. “You can make out
when somebody is a good person.”
On March 22, 2025, the trajec
tory of Kokoro changed completely.
Onuma was having dinner nearby
when she noticed fire trucks out
side her building. “A firefighter told
me the ceiling had collapsed,” she
recalls. “I said, ‘Which store?’ And
he pointed to mine. I said, ‘Oh my
God, that’s my store.’ ”
Inside, water had accumulated
above the plaster ceiling until it gave
way, falling near the cash register
where employees would normally
have been standing. “It looked like a
tornado had come through the store,”
Onuma says. “We were just very, very
lucky that no one got hurt.”
Reopening proved complicated.
Insurance and renovation issues
slowed the process. As the closure
stretched on, Onuma’s family began
suggesting it might be time to close
Kokoro for good.
But customers kept asking about
the store. Emails and social media
posts made their way to Onuma
through Hubert, all asking some ver
sion of the same question: Would
Kokoro reopen? “It was really over
whelming,” Onuma says.
The response from customers had
a profound impact on her. “It’s what
kept me going,” she says. “I felt very,
very strongly that I wanted to con
tinue in one way or another.”
Just a few doors away, Salaskar
was facing her own version of the
same question. “The landlords sold
the building and the new owners in
creased the rent by a lot,” she says.
Salaskar needed to find a new
home for Kimaya Kama, but hoped
she wouldn’t have to leave the neigh
borhood. “I really did not want to
move away,” she says.
As she searched for a new space,
ErinRose Baldry, executive director
of the Maplewood Village Alliance,
suggested she reach out to Onuma.
Salaskar did, and it opened the
door to the idea of sharing space. “It
was literally one conversation and
we knew it was going to work out,”
Salaskar says. “The solution was so
simple after all the stress.”
For Onuma, the timing worked
in a way she hadn’t anticipated ei
ther. “Things happen for a reason,”
she says. “The procrastination actu
ally helped because by the time I was
ready to get back on track, Kimaya
approached me.”
Suddenly, there was a deadline.
“We had to put everything on fast
forward because she needed to be
out of her space,” Onuma says. By
mid-June 2026, Kokoro and Kimaya
Kama were both operating from 172
Maplewood Ave.
Onuma admits she might not
have opened the door to just anyone.
“I always saw her as a very generous
and kind person,” she says.
Formalities were minimal. “We
almost have something similar to a
handshake agreement,” Onuma says.
“The contract is only two pages.”
Walk into the store today and
neither business has disappeared into
the other. Kokoro and Kimaya Kama
maintain their own spaces, invento
ries, price tags and registers. “If there
are times when my side of the store is
open and Kokoro isn’t, I can still do
the transaction,” Salaskar says. “No
Onuma wraps a gift at the check out
desk for Kokoro.
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