My church runs a thrift store in the West End that Pam and I have been volunteering at for a couple of years now. It’s a typical thrift store in many ways except it has really nice stuff priced really cheap, so they move merchandise like nobody’s business. The store makes a lot of money and plows it back into a wide variety of charities and ministries here in our city and around the world. The stories I could tell about what a blessing that place has been to people down on their luck are incredible. It’s been a great place to volunteer our time, along side people who want to make a difference in the lives of people who enter the building.
Well, today, we are opening a second store over at the Belgrade Shopping Center south of the river. Pam and I took a shift from 11:00 to 3:00. I haven’t seen the place yet but I’ve heard the stories and can’t wait. I blame Renee Norton for getting me hooked up with this thrift store gig. She is, for lack of a better term, the general manager of the operation, the boss lady who happens to be in our small group at Hope. But she isn’t the only passionate cheerleader of the store, I could rattle off the names of at least a dozen others who have devoted large chunks of their time to make the place work. There are only a handful of full time employees of the store. The vast majority of those who work there are volunteers like Pam and me. You can imagine how difficult it has been to get the nearly 190 such volunteers to venture back out to work once again after the shut down caused by COVID. I mean, this isn’t exactly what anyone would call a sterile environment. (There are dumpsters involved!!). But, here we are, opening a second location in the year of a pandemic.
One story...a year or so ago there was a young mother with three elementary school aged kids. She was clearly struggling with the enormity of the task of getting three young children ready for back to school with very limited resources. As she got to the register she laid out a ton of cute clothes that looked like new clothes, enough to give each child several outfits for the new school year. When the order was rung up it was an insanely small amount of money. The look on her face...the relief, the gratefulness that she had found so much for so little shown from that face like a beam of light. Tears welled in her eyes.
That’s exactly why my church runs a thrift store and why we are opening a second one in the middle of a pandemic. Stop by if you get a chance.
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