'Gently Used'

Volunteer Catharina Stoehr processes a few “gently used” purchases by thrift shop customer Bertha Fiore of Wantage.

Catholic Family and Community Services opens renovated thrift shop, food pantry

FRANKLIN  Bertha Fiore inches closer in line to the checkout counter, clutching an armful of “gently used” items for purchase — great deals that she snagged for a few dollars. The Wantage resident seems happy with her frugal finds during her first visit to the Catholic Family & Community Services Thrift Shop & Veteran’s Closest here: a few pieces of clothing and a vintage radio, probably from the 1970s.

Visitors, like Fiore, delight finding something old — “gently worn” clothing or a previous owned household item — but also in discovering something new: a refurbished thrift store, which is located in the basement in the Sussex site of the Catholic Family & Community Services (CFCS). The store helps fund the center’s CFCS Sussex Pantry, which also received a major renovation that enables clients now to shop for their own food. Both facilities reopened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 23.

“I love the layout of the thrift shop and the selection is great,” said Jean Fiore, who bought some clothes and coffee filters and who visited with her mother, Bertha, and sister, Sharon, who was up from Texas. “We would come back here and recommend it to other people.”

A door on one side of the Sussex site opens to stairs that lead down to the thrift store, which consists of three main rooms that are packed to the rafters with donated merchandise. The front checkout area leads to a large room filled with adult clothing and house wares, such as lamps, plates and linens, and another filled with children’s clothing and toys. Newer visitors to the store may not notice all the recent improvements: refinished floors; a fresh coat of green paint on the walls; a room that now accommodates a washer and dryer, so that staff can wash and dry clothing before putting them out on display; and another room, where customers can try on clothes.

The renovations allowed for another new feature: a special section for U.S. military veterans, an area that houses mainly clothing behind a decorative black screen in large room with the adult clothes and house wares. Items in this section are available free to veterans, who show proper identification. A full-service agency, the Sussex site also helps veterans furnish the apartments by referring them to CFCS’s Veterans program in Paterson, said Kathy Talmadge, the Franklin facility’s operations manager.

“The thrift store is nicer, brighter and better organized than before,” said Talmadge, who noted that total makeover took four months. “It’s not a thrift store any more; now it’s a boutique!”

Upstairs on the main floor of the center, the refurbished food pantry now enables clients to shop for themselves, taking the food that they want out of a refrigerator or off shelves that line the room and placing the items in a plastic tub. Then, a staff member places the tub on an elongated table that sits in the center of the room and puts the groceries in bags for the clients, Talmadge said.

Under the leadership of Brenda Blackman, the pantry — which serves about 40 families per week — affords clients both privacy and anonymity, because it has its own outside entrance and a door that leads to the center’s main hallway remains closed. A room across the hall formerly housed the food pantry and now accommodates a storage room filled with much more food. The room will house a larger canned goods, provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and a large freezer that will be brought up from the center’s basement, Talmadge said.

“The pantry just reopened, so people are getting to know that we are here. We want more people to visit. The need is out there. It’s for anyone who needs it,” said Talmadge. “In the past, clients would call and then we would bag the food and have it waiting for them. Now, clients pick out the food for themselves. Every family has different needs and wants,” she said.

Renovations to food pantry started in April, as volunteers and staff removed furniture a former conference room and cleaned the floors. Boy Scouts from Troop 94 of Sparta Veterans of Foreign Wars painted the walls a soothing yellow color and put up shelving. Then, some of the food was relocated to the former conference room, which now serves as the pantry, Talmadge said.

“Many of the people, who come to the pantry, are down on their luck. We treat clients like anybody else — with dignity,” said Talmadge, who noted that the pantry has received donations from the diocesan-wide Corpus Christi food drive; local parishes; individuals, who drop off items; and local farms that provide fresh produce.

The thrift store and food pantry are among many social outreaches provided by the Partnership for Social Services Family Center, which advances CFCS’s mission to help individuals and families through its clinical, educational and community services.

Dorothy Armstrong of St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish, Sparta, participates in the center’s Workforce 55 senior employment program and regularly stops in to shop for her own food at the pantry.

“It’s a lovely place for people to visit. There is a large variety of groceries. It’s hard for some folks to come to a food pantry, but the people here make it easy and are welcoming,” Armstrong said.

The thrift store hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The food pantry hours are Monday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

[Information: call Catholic Family and Community Services Thrift Shop and
Veteran’s Closet at (973) 209-0123.]