The Sunnyvale Sun
Cover Story
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Julian Lawrence, 2, enjoys a good book while his grandmother, Luanne LaClaire, does some shopping. LaClaire has been coming to the Discovery Shop in Sunnyvale a couple of times a week for nearly eight years.
Fantastic Finds
Thrift stores of every stripe offer big bargains for clever shoppers
By JOANNE GRIFFITH DOMINGUE
Kathy Sheridan likes shopping at Nearly New, a Sunnyvale resale shop with gently used clothes, toys, bric-a-brac and books. She's especially tickled when she can pick up name-brand items for pennies on the dollar.
This month the Cupertino mom browses for Halloween costumes for her two children, 10-year-old Jeff and 16-year-old Allison. For costume parties with a theme, such as a hoedown or gangster, "You want to look the part but not spend a fortune," she said.
For Sheridan, thrift shopping is more than just finding a good bargain. "It's the idea of reusing material, of promoting recycling, of keeping stuff out of the landfill" that really pleases her.
The Sunnyvale-Cupertino area has four thrift shops, each with a different feel, each with a trove of bargain-priced treasures waiting to be found. And every day is different. You never know what might have been dropped off the day before. For many thrift shoppers, cruising these shops is a sport. Whether shoppers are clothing their children for school or finding treasures for a collection, they are also helping others, because all the profits from these stores go to charities.
Helping with heartache
The Sunnyvale Discovery Shop is one of 41 in California owned and operated by the American Cancer Society. There are many more shops outside of California. The first Discovery Shop began in Southern California in 1965. The Sunnyvale store opened eight years ago. Today it is one of the top 12 shops in volume and money raised for the American Cancer Society.
That makes Linda Sun and Nancy Kleist, paid co-managers of the shop, really proud. But they give full credit for the store's success to their 70 volunteers who receive donations, mark and sort the merchandise and staff the shop.
"Without the volunteers, we couldn't do it," Kleist said. A good day for the shop, Sun said, brings in more than $1,500, but that's not counting the four major events it holds a year. The next is the shop's jewelry event, Nov. 10 and 11.
Proceeds from the shop go to operating expenses, patient services and outreach for the American Cancer Society, said Angie Carrillo, marketing and communications director with the American Cancer Society.
The shop, which feels like a boutique with bargains, offers more than merchandise. Cancer patients and shoppers come in for information. Leaflets on the checkout counter remind customers October is breast cancer awareness month.
Families who have lost a loved one bring in things to donate. "They are giving back, helping raise money for a cure," Carrillo said.
"We have people come here and share their story," Sun said. "Families have someone who passes away with cancer. One young lady--a medical student--had cancer and died. Her parents brought all her stuff into the store. We spend time listening."
"You're like a counselor--helping people feel better," Kleist said.
Cupertino resident Joan Graber has been volunteering at the shop almost since it opened. She began as a cashier. Now she does all the store displays, including the front windows. "I can do a display, and it sells within an hour." Finding what she wants in all the merchandise is like a treasure hunt, she said.
Her husband has been battling cancer for 16 years. The Discovery Shops raise money for research. "Brand-new medicines have given him more time," Graber said.
Cupertino resident Bernie Kwan also volunteers at the Discovery Shop. She had breast cancer 15 years ago and was active in the Joy Club, a breast cancer organization for Chinese women. Now she works in the shop.
"I enjoy it. Everything we sell goes for cancer." She shops a little bit, too.,but right now she is downsizing, as she will be moving soon to a condo.
Marie Crowninshield is a regular shopper at the Discovery Shop and comes in once a week. "I just cruise," she said. "I bought a sofa here for $300 that I have in my living room. It was a $5,000 sofa. Things [in the shop] are beautiful, top quality, very well organized, just the right price. You can't help [buying things], can you?"
Recent "best buys" included a set of six white porcelain dinner plates, made in Germany, for $8; a clean, gray Teddy bear for $3; and a rocking bassinet, with navy blue ruffles, for $15.
Building a community
The Nearly New Shop in Sunnyvale is a one-of-a-kind store, owned and operated by members of the P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic and educational organization for women. The shop opened Sept. 4, 1958, to raise money for a health unit to be built in San Jose at a retirement home for P.E.O. members.
In its first seven years the shop raised $100,000 for the P.E.O. Home. In 1967 sales went over $2,000 per month. By then the home was built, fully occupied and had a waiting list.
But change challenged the shop. The current location is its fourth. The P.E.O. women now own the building after renting at three other locations. But the home that the shop was created to support closed in August, due to declining numbers of residents and rising costs. Now the proceeds of the shop will assist former residents of the home who were forced to move, and will provide scholarships to women from the Santa Clara Valley and Peninsula area.
All merchandise at Nearly New is donated by P.E.O.s. The store is staffed by P.E.O. volunteers. Wendy Tracy, manager, and Jo Grgich, assistant manager, are paid.
One day a customer told Tracy she was moving back to Central America. She said she had lived in the neighborhood with her three children and the money they saved shopping at Nearly New helped put all three of her children through college.
"We strive to put out nice things," Tracy said. "You never know what treasures will come in that we can pass along to our clientele. Lockheed people come over at lunch. Treasure hunters--the people who love to come to thrift stores--all come."
Tracy loves telling about the Sunnyvale couple who came in to find clothes for their Christmas party. "They both have really good jobs. They wanted to outfit themselves for under $100." And they did. He found his tux, his shoes, his bowtie and cummerbund--everything except the studs for his cuff links. And she found her dress and shoes. They liked the picture of themselves in these outfits so much they used it on their Christmas card.
Lois Christopherson, a member of P.E.O. Sunnyvale Chapter UB, volunteers in the shop. She loves seeing children come in with their parents "and finding books they love and want and knowing the parents can afford to purchase the books" because of the bargain prices at Nearly New.
Longtime Cupertino resident Rusty Britt volunteers and shops there as well. "I always look for books, especially children's books, because I tutor in my home."
Aside from the bargains, the best thing about the shop is the volunteers, Tracy said. "I don't see how we'd have made it without their dedication. Some have been coming since the beginning--nearly 50 years."
Sunnyvale resident Shirley Krongard is one of those volunteers. She comes in on Mondays and takes care of old linens and lace that come to the shop. She takes them home, launders them and then displays them in the store.
Nearly New's recent "best buys" included about 10 different kinds of old lace, such as a half-yard of tatting for 50 cents; one yard of one-inch lace for $2; a set of eight white linen hemstitched napkins for $6.
Offering a hand up
The motto for Goodwill Industries is "a hand up, not a handout." Goodwill was founded in 1902 in Boston by a Methodist minister. He collected clothes and goods from the wealthy and then trained and hired those who were poor to mend and repair the used items. The goods were then resold or given to the people who repaired them.
Today Goodwill is a $2.4 billion nonprofit organization. More than 84 percent of Goodwill's total revenues are used to fund education and career services and other community programs.
This year, Goodwill Industries of Silicon Valley, with 15 stores from Palo Alto to Gilroy, will serve and place 3,000 people in its career development program, said Frank Kent, president and C.E.O. of Goodwill Industries of Silicon Valley.
The best seller, beyond any doubt, Kent said, is furniture. Goodwill now offers GoodEx, a next-day pick-up service for furniture. In September, he sent 300 thank-you letters to people who donated furniture. "And 90 percent of this is good furniture," Kent said.
The Sunnyvale and Cupertino Goodwill stores feel more like Wal-Marts than the boutique thrift shops of Nearly New and the Discovery Shop. They are huge, with shelves and displays as far as the eye can see.
In the Cupertino Goodwill in a back corner, a woman wearing an orange cashmere sweater was measuring picture frames. She was looking for a frame for a print she had. "It's very expensive to get things framed, so I came here," she said. She wouldn't give her name but did say she lived in Sunnyvale.
"It's fun--kind of like a big garage sale," she said, pointing around the store.
"Best buys" spotted at Goodwill Cupertino included a battered but solid maple student's desk with brass Williamsburg-style pulls for $25 and a Bates George Washington 100 percent cotton bedspread in mint condition for $10.
"Best buys" spotted in Goodwill, Sunnyvale included a set of eight matching wineglasses for 99 cents each; a Queen Anne-style oval dining room table with six matching chairs and a leaf for $250.
Whether you shop at a Discovery Shop, Nearly New or the Goodwill, thrift shopping is about much more than thrift. It's recycling, it's reusing, and, as Kathy Sheridan said, "You can get nicely gussied up for a decent price."
Joanne Griffith Domingue belongs to a P.O.E.
