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published: Friday, April 17, 2009

Thrift stores raise money, hope

By CHRISTOPHER TUFFLEY

christopher.tuffley@newssun.com

AVON PARK -- At 7 a.m. Palm Sunday, Georgia Jones was on the road to Tampa with fellow volunteers from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church's Community Services Center.

They were headed to America's Second Harvest of Tampa Bay, the major food bank for the area.

The food bank is one of the providers for the SDA's food pantry at the community center. The pantry, in its turn, supplies free food directly to qualified residents in Highlands County.

Jones directs the church's complex at 1403 W. Avon Blvd. It is a collection of converted homes and one metal building designed to house a clothing thrift store.

"I want people to know what we do with our money," she said. "We're spending it on the community, making it a better place."

The SDA complex provides a wide range of used goods at prices people of limited means can afford. It provides other services too.

There is the clothing center, where sections are clearly marked, and items tagged and color coded. It sells everything from linens to shoes, featuring heavy clothing in the winter and lightweight in the summer in children and adult sizes.

Wanda Hayes, who oversees the thrift store component of the complex, said every item is reviewed three times before being put out for sale, and every item is washed and ironed as well.

"Nothing goes to waste," Hayes said. "What we don't sell, we give away."

Furniture has its own building, where tables, chairs, chests of drawers, beds and dishes, kitchen items and other household items are for sale. There is enough variety, depending on the varying stock that relies on donations, that a family can entirely furnish a house from it.

In fact, the SDA center is one of the places the fire department will send families who have been burned out of their homes. Free clothing also is available to them.

Besides items for sale, the center has a health room on site, where a volunteer nurse, Joyce Pifer of the Parish Nurse Association, monitors blood pressure and dispenses free medications to qualifying patients. She also runs a cooking class every year, and teaches nutrition. Some medical paraphernalia -- like walkers and crutches -- also are available.

Because of the money raised by the thrift shops, the complex doesn't just pay for itself -- covering utilities, insurance, one vehicle and paying for remodeling and expansions -- it supports the food pantry and other community services as well.

Every Wednesday at noon, for example, hot vegetarian meals are served at no cost. Jones estimated 30 to 40 meals are delivered to shut-ins, and another 40 to 50 to people who stop by the center.

Thrift store proceeds have gone to buying and outfitting a disaster relief mobile kitchen. It is so new to the center it wasn't quite up and running during the recent lockdown of Florida Hospital Heartland Division due to the anthrax scare.

"It was embarrassing," Jones said, "that the support for the emergency personnel had to come in from Polk County."

With the center's kitchen now ready to roll, it will be available for any similar situation in Highlands, as well as the hurricane season.

The food pantry is an operation all by itself.

Bob Catron, a retired state social worker, volunteers at the center screening new consumers and helping guide old ones. Catron has three metal cabinets, stuffed with files.

There are income eligibility requirements and category classifications. For example, receiving food stamps, aid to families with dependent children, supplemental social security income or living in public housing that is funded by any level of government qualifies a person or family for access to the food pantry.

That means a consumer may select 15 pounds of food for every individual in his or her family once a month.

The shelves are lined with canned goods, bags of rice and beans, turkey and sometimes beef are often available -- again the inventory depends on supply.

Jones wanted the public to know the entire complex couldn't operate without its core of loyal volunteers -- not all of whom belong to her church.

"If you don't have faithful, dependable people, this couldn't have happened," she said. They do everything from sorting and pricing to cleaning and fixing, to lending a sympathetic ear.

Other thrift stores in the area contribute to good causes as well.

The Ridge Area Arc resale shop on Main Street, for example, helps to keep the agency's group homes running. This is now especially important money, because the state has drastically cut funding.

Nu-Hope thrift shops provide the critical matching funds that agency needs to win essential grants.

The best way to support these organizations is to donate an item rather than throwing it in the trash.

And of course, stop by to browse. You might be pleasantly surprised to stumble upon a treasure.