I love thrift stores. It’s not so much about finding something cheap that you can use, it’s the hunt, and that thrill of finding that item you never knew you always wanted. Growing up in Lexington, Virginia, I had two favorite stores which really set the bar in terms of finding treasure; the Stonewall Jackson Hospital Auxiliary Thrift Store and Freddy Goodheart’s Second Hand Shop. As a teen-ager, I didn’t have particular items I collected, just stuff that caught my eye: bone plates, a fuchsia wool coat made in Scotland by the Queen’s weaver, antique buttons, hats. Over the years I’ve refined my eye and have developed collections like unusual juice glasses, fondue pots, and funky items for my garden. They all fall under the heading, “They make me smile”.

“Reduce, re-use, recycle, repurpose” the adage goes. We’re a disposable society. We’re in too much of a hurry, too many things to do, too busy to consider we’re leaving over filled landfills for our children and children’s children to deal with. Clearly, we don’t care. Some do, but not nearly enough. Bill Kovarik has written a detailed comment on how the City of Radford has addressed its recycling issues. Not much more than a cursory nod.

Recycling, or re-purposing has proven to be good business for some, as well as making Mother Earth smile. A win-win situation. I’m loving the YToss at Va Tech during the week the students are moving out. They YMCA Thrift Store in Blacksburg realized that when push comes to shove and “Daddy can’t fit my futon in the back of his Nissan truck”, that students were dumping perfectly good albeit used items in dumpsters when they moved out of dorms, just because they couldn’t transport them. The Y realized that they could take those dumped items and sell them, the proceeds going to help others. So they made it easy for the students by setting up bins on campus. They even offered tax write-off receipts. In 2006 the Y reported they made $2000 off the campus discards. Last year they cleared $4000.

Southwest Virginia is crawling with the most wonderful thrift stores. Someone else’s trash just might be your treasure. Do a little googling and you’ll find them. Find that one thing you’ve wanted all your life, but never knew you did, and pat yourself on the back for thinking globally but acting locally.

- Lucinda McDermott Piro

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 11:41 am and is filed under SWVA Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.