‘Thriftlandia’: Clark County thrift store goods in demand

An odd combination of impulses led to the opening of the Second Chance Thrift Store: Christian charity and the thrill of the hunt. Bargain hunt, that is.

Arlas Nemnich and some pals were worried about Friends of the Carpenter, a Vancouver drop-in center and mission for the homeless, which has long subsisted on faith and donations.

“Nonprofit giving is way down, and I always felt they needed more,” said Nemnich. “We thought this might be something to help them earn money.”

Nemnich and friends were all veterans of thrift store sales counters and workrooms. They wanted to do it again, and do it themselves — because thrift stores aren’t just a way to pump up worthy charities, they’re also a lifestyle.

“It’s an addiction — the thrill of the hunt,” said Kristen Carr, an ally in the project. Nemnich, Carr and friends Wendy Loyd and Carla Lehto created a business plan, got the blessing of the Friends of the Carpenter board, scrambled to find a storefront and opened in time for Christmas at 3414-A N.E. 53rd St., off St. Johns Boulevard.

“It’s going great,” Nemnich said. The Rev. Duane Sich, executive director of Friends of the Carpenter, didn’t want to share dollar figures but said profits from the Second Chance Thrift Store have made a huge difference.

“We’re so thrilled,” Sich said. “We have operated solely on donations and charitable gifts. As everybody knows, that’s gotten more competitive and tougher. We were facing some pretty serious cutbacks.”

Despite its overhead and rent, Sich said, the store “has been able to not only cover costs but make us a nice profit each month. In previous years, we always had to borrow money to operate and pay our bills. Not this year.”

Thrift boom

Current economic stresses, from layoffs and foreclosures to rising food and fuel bills, have hurt families that never used to consider dressing in anything but the factory-new. Now, the gently — or even not so gently — used will have to do.

Between the shoppers who rely on them to make ends meet and shoppers who just love hunting for bargains, thrift stores are booming business these days — with industry leaders reporting growing sales and mom-and-pop shops such as Second Chance following in their wake.

“Thrifts are a bit recession-proof,” said Dale Emanuel, a Vancouver resident and spokeswoman for Portland-based Goodwill Industries of the Columbia-Willamette, which operates six stores in Clark County and dozens more throughout Oregon.

Goodwill is doing better than ever, she said. “Sales are up from this time last year, donations are up,” said Emanuel. “We have seen our regular customers come in more often, and we’ve seen lots of individuals who have had to reinvent the way they look at money. Maybe they’ve come in for the first time since their high school days.”

She added that the local Goodwill “system” is by far the most successful one in the country in terms of both sales and donations.

So here’s another new nickname for the recently christened nation of Portlandia: Thriftlandia, nation of sensible bargain hunting.

Clark County is its northern province, of course. According to Emanuel, Goodwill sales up here have risen each year since 2005 by small — or really big — amounts. For example, from 2007 to 2008, sales went up 20.4 percent; from 2008 to 2009, another 27.8 percent; and from 2009 to 2010, yet another 10 percent.

Emanuel would provide only percentages, because, she said, revealing actual dollar tallies of annual Goodwill sales lead some to believe the nonprofit business is really a for-profit. Nonetheless, the website for Goodwill of Industries of the Columbia-Willamette, http://www.meetgoodwill.org, includes a 2009 annual report that says sales of clothing, furniture and other items totaled just over $96 million. That’s within the regional Goodwill system — not across entire nation.

Competing charities?

Goodwill may be doing fine by virtue of its famous name and cultural cool — and the fact that it’s been around for over 80 years, Emanuel said. “It may be a tradition … to give to Goodwill, put together a box once a month,” she said. “People are very green here, and that may be a result.”

Other local nonprofit organizations driven by thrift store sales report a different landscape.

“We are feeling the recession. People are holding on to their used clothes longer,” said Jesse Dunn, executive director of The Arc of Southwest Washington, which provides services and advocacy for people with developmental disabilities. The biggest single chunk of The Arc’s budget — nearly 40 percent — has been driven by sales of donated, second-hand goods sold at the local Value Village thrift store, 7110 N.E. Fourth Plain Road. But that number is shrinking, Dunn said.

Last year, homeless mission Open House Ministries decided to stop handing over all the furniture donation it receives to the Salvation Army, a sister Christian charity with thrifts all over America, and launch its own store instead. A few months later, it doubled the size of its showroom at 915 W. 13th Street. The store pulls in between $2,000 and $2,200 per month, according to operations manager Viki Landsverk.

“For us, it’s 100 percent profit,” said Open House manager Richard Barton. “We already own the building. We don’t have to pay rent like Friends of the Carpenter does.” Volunteers eager to grow some retails sales skills staff the operation, he said.

The Salvation Army, which operates a thrift at 7400 N.E. Highway 99, didn’t respond to a query about its local sales and donations. But a Los Angeles marketing firm this week sent out a plea on the charity’s behalf — “The Salvation Army needs donations!” — and directing interested readers to a website, http//www.satruck.org, where pickup arrangements can be made.

Are these proliferating thrifts competing with one another? Nobody was willing to tell The Columbian there are too many thrift stores out there now. But most volunteered that donations are dwindling.

“We are always desperate for donations,” said Nemnich. “Good quality donations.”

Other local thrifts support causes and agencies such as the American Cancer Society and the Humane Society for Southwest Washington. Nonprofit Divine Consign, an upscale used-furniture store in downtown Vancouver, makes gifts and grants to a wide variety of local charities, from library and school foundations to foster children and arts programs.

Clark County government — motivated not by bargain lust but a policy of reducing the waste stream and encouraging re-use — provides an extensive (and still incomplete) list and map of local thrifts and consignment stores at http://www.clark.wa.gov/recycle/reduction. At last count, there were 34 stores on the list.

Paintings and socks

Even within the world of thrift stores, there are strata of goods and prices — the fine and fancy, the halfway decent and the better-than-nothing.

Ask around, and you hear that Goodwill occupies that first slot. Some complain that its prices don’t even compare favorably with Walmart.

“There are two levels, the people who can afford the $100 painting and the people who need 25-cent socks,” Nemnich said. Folks who flock to her Second Chance store tend to be the former. Most prices are “down there,” she said, but a few fine wood creations crafted by the clients of Friends of the Carpenter command respectable sums, too. A neighborhood coffee klatch has grown up around the place, she said.

Somewhere below that are thrifts such as Washougal’s Interfaith Treasure House, at 91 C Street, setting prices pretty low and driving a food bank, a soup kitchen and numerous other crisis-assistance programs and services with that money.

The Columbian recently reported trouble at The Regifting Store, a downscale thrift at 7635 S.E. MacArthur Blvd., that operates on a pay-what-you-can model — even when that’s nothing at all — and also aims to be an informal service provider for the really desperate. Started a couple of years ago by local businessman Korry Holtzlander, The Regifting Store has been victim of numerous inside-job thefts — and a lax business structure, Holtzlander admitted — and was teetering on the edge of failure in February.

Holtzlander and his fans issued a cry for help — in the form of donations — and the place appears to be doing better now.

The women at the Second Chance Thrift Store never expect to hit such dire straits. They run the store themselves and vet all volunteers using their own peerless common sense, they said.

“Having volunteered for 25 years, you get a sense of who you can trust and who’s out for a deal,” Carr said.

Scott Hewitt: 360-735-4525 or scott.hewitt@columbian.com.