Kiwanis Thrift Store bucks sluggish economy
With retailers reporting sales down and not much hope in sight, one outlet has seen sales increases and is optimistic that they will continue.
Roger Welton, treasurer for the Fort Myers Beach Kiwanis Thrift Store, located in Miners Plaza, says at the beginning of the economic downturn sales were off at the store.
“During our fiscal year ’06-07, we only netted $50,000 from the store,” he said. “But starting in the fall of ’07, it picked up again and every single month from ’07 until the end of September of ’08 we’ve beat the previous year. We actually ended up clearing about $110,000.”
The thrift store opened 15 years ago to raise money for local charities, Welton said.
“We have averaged putting back about $100,000 a year to the community,” Welton said. “We’ve been supporting primarily children’s programs, scholarships, hospitals. Sometimes special things come up, like this summer we funded the bus trips for the Bay Oaks (Recreation Center) program. Their funding got back this summer so we came up with $4,500 to help them. That’s what we do.”
And that’s not all the service organization does for the community, Welton says.
“We help a lot of people in need that come to us,” he said, “people who need clothes and household goods. Those people are referred to us from churches and other organizations that are involved in helping people,”
Welton says he believes the upturn in business in the thrift store is an indicator of a slow economy.
“People can almost as good from us as they can from new, especially on furniture,” he said. “We get furniture constantly from people who are redecorating and that’s big. We get furniture from the Beach and Sanibel and other areas where there are a lot of rentals – they have to upgrade all the time and we benefit from that. We’re getting furniture that’s only three to five years old and we’re selling at good prices.”
As to clothing, Welton says the thrift store receives donations three to four times the amount they can actually use.
“But we have an outlet that takes all that we don’t want,” he said. “They pay us by the pound at it goes to many poor countries around the world.”
As to the upcoming season, Welton said he was worried at first but is now optimistic.
“The first three weeks of October we were a little scared,” he said. “But the last two week have been fantastic. I guess it’s just a little later starting this year.”
Customers who shop at the thrift store can expect to pay between 10 and 20 percent of the original retail cost on large items, Welton said.
“And probably most of it is 10 percent,” he said.
The Fort Myers Beach Kiwanis Thrift Store is located in Miners Plaza, 15501 McGregor Blvd. For more information call 454-8090.