POND CREEK—What started out as a way to support church mission projects has grown into a countywide outreach program.
Family Thrift Center in downtown Pond Creek is the fruition of Allison Schultz’s vision, said the center’s fellow board co-chair Candy Wilson Kent.
A working mother involved in several school, church, and community groups, Schultz noticed that wouldn’t it be great if Pond Creek had some place local where people could donate all their gently used but no longer needed items for others to utilize?
Four years ago, she told herself “We really need a thrift store.”
Meanwhile the president of First State Bank of Pond Creek, J.D. Boyer, saw the remaining historical building downtown on the verge of being demolished and couldn’t stand the thought of that history disappearing, so he purchased it, Kent said.
Kent is grateful he did because that building has special meaning to her family.
Built in 1900, it was owned by Luther L. Lee who opened it as a second-hand store. Luther’s son Harold partnered with Orville Wilson in the 1930s and operated Lee Furniture in the building.
Back then, furniture stores and funeral homes were one in the same, Kent said, because caskets were considered furniture. The front part of the building was home furniture and the back part was the funeral parlor with a casket showroom.
By 1951, the business split; Lee Furniture remained while Wilson Funeral Home relocated down the street. Today the funeral home is run by the third generation of Wilsons.
Eventually Lee Furniture closed, with most of the Lee family gone now, and a succession of businesses came and went in the building, Kent said.
“It sat empty for long time,” she said, before Boyer rescued it with plans to renovate and restore.
When Schultz first presented her idea of a thrift store with other members of Pond Creek Methodist Church, 221 S. 2nd, they considered building it next to the church. After all, the church houses the Pond Creek Ministerial Alliance’s food pantry, so another mission on the grounds seemed reasonable.
But then the Family Thrift Center Board considered other factors, such as the shop needed to more visible rather than be tucked away on a side street. Plus, Schultz said, they didn’t want non-religious customers to be uncomfortable or intimidated by a church-associated store.
While the board searched for a location, Boyer “offered the downtown building to us to use for free,” Kent said. “It was extremely generous.”
Boyer updated the building enough so the board could begin forming and shaping the thrift shop inside, and by the end of February this year, Family Thrift Center officially opened to the public.
“Donations started rolling in and haven’t stopped,” Schultz said, citing “It’s an overwhelming amount of donations.”
And it’s not just local support and donations from the town of less than a thousand residents; nearby rural communities including Medford, Lamont, and Hunter have pitched in too.
“Everyone knows money is going back into the community,” Schultz said.
Many people locally and from surrounding towns are attracted to Family Thrift Center because all the items in the store are extremely affordable, from clothing for all genders, ages, and sizes to estate furniture, books, toys, movies, and holiday décor.
“There are lots of good finds,” Schultz said, adding moms in particular know they can outfit their kids for cheap as well as donate those same clothes back when the kids outgrow them. Not to mention, she said, out-of-towners have traveled to Pond Creek for the bargains they find at Family Thrift Center.
The thrift shop is solely volunteer run—there are no paid employees.
“This is a labor of love,” Schultz said. Volunteers run the store when it’s open Thursday through Saturday. Volunteers also come in nearly every day and night to separate and sort donations, toss out the items that aren’t fit for sale, switch out and assemble seasonal displays, and weed out multiples of certain items.
“If we have too much or too many, we give to Park Avenue Thrift or Enid YWCA,” Schultz said.
In fact, Family Thrift Center is modeled similar to Enid’s Park Avenue Thrift in that all of the store’s profits are given back to the community to support local projects.
The Pond Creek thrift store has already exceeded expectations, and therefore, has begun funding projects.
One of the main reasons Family Thrift Center was founded, Schultz said, was to help the community food pantry stay open and stay stocked. FTC purchased a deep freezer for the pantry to store meat and other fresh foods.
Pond Creek-Hunter Schools also has been a recipient.
Kent said the school librarian wanted the grade school chapter book program up and running but was prevented from doing so due to a firebox issue in the library location. FTC provided the funds to pay a certified company to professionally relocate the firebox.
FTC also provided funds to pay for 150 students to receive lunches on an AR (Accelerated Reading) field trip to Rustic Roots in Lamont.
Schultz said FTC regularly partners with PCHS’ PTA so “kids can do the fun things.”
Next year, the plan is to open the loft in the thrift shop so local high school teens can shop for prom dresses, suits, ties, shoes, and jewelry, similar to Enid YWCA’s Project Cinderella.
Foster families, single moms, and individuals in need have all benefitted from FTC too in recent months.
“That’s what we’re here for,” Kent said.
When the thrift shop opened 10 months ago, Schultz said she was expecting they’d make a few hundred dollars each month. They’ve way exceeded that.
“I feel like we will be able to sustain for years to come,” she added, which means come their one-year anniversary next February, they could begin funding bigger projects and devising long-term plans.
“We want to share the love,” Kent said.
Family Thrift Center, 130 W. Broadway, is open Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Customers can follow it on Facebook under the same name and message questions. Request forms for funding community betterment projects in Grant County are available at the shop.