5 Florida United Methodist Review Online

Thrift store supports community, youth ministries

By Michael Wacht

TUSTENUGGEE — Just off state highway 27 in the rural town of Ft. White is a rented garage that is home to Tustenuggee United Methodist Church’s thrift store. What started as a way to dispose of extra rummage sale items has become a ministry that provides money for church youth and children’s programs, while addressing the community’s crime and welfare issues.

Through the sale of donated clothes, shoes, toys and bicycles, the volunteers that run the shop take in “maybe $20 to $30 a day,” said the Rev. Jim Roach, the church’s local pastor. “Every time they make a dollar, they save it.”

The money doesn’t stay in church, however. It’s used to minister to the community.

“…twice a year, at VBS [vacation Bible school] time and Christmas time, they take the money saved and give it to seven small local churches in the area: Baptist, Nazarene and others,” Roach said. The money is used to buy materials for the other church’s children’s programs.

Proceeds from the thrift shop also support river rafting trips for community youth, a twice-monthly Saturday craft program and the Cuban Pastors Support Fund. Roach said there are now plans to purchase and distribute Bibles, sponsor a Cub and Girl Scout troop, and establish an emergency relief fund.

But, Roach says, the thrift shop’s ministry goes beyond just raising money: “If someone comes in with a need…boom…those volunteers are on it. If we have it, you can have it. If we don’t have it, we’ll try to find it.”

Roach recounts numerous stories of people and families that have been helped. A man went to the shop looking for size 11 shoes. A volunteer knew that Roach wore size 11, so she called him and asked him for a pair of his shoes.

A migrant worker went with his wife and seven children to the shop looking for school clothes. Each child received three outfits, his wife was given dresses, and he received work pants and shirts. Roach said the man wanted to pay for the clothes, but the volunteers refused to accept the 20 crumpled $1 bills he had in his pocket. Finally, after 15 minutes of arguing, the volunteers accepted $5 for the clothes.

The thrift story is “a laity thing,” Roach said. It is staffed entirely by volunteers who keep the store open eight hours a day, six days a week. “We have this cadre of people who have dedicated their lives to doing this,” he said. “It’s not a preconditioned evangelical effort. It’s literally showing love by the side of the road.”

Included among the shop’s volunteers are people from the community performing court-ordered community service or receiving on-the-job training as part of a program to get them off welfare roles. “The government has realized that this religious organization is someplace they can send people to get back on their feet,” Roach said, adding that several have joined the church and turned their lives around after working at the thrift shop.

The church has also benefited. Weekly worship attendance has increased from 12 to more than 60, and the church has added three new Sunday School classes to accommodate all the children attending.

“It’s like the Holy Spirit lives at this place,” Roach said. “There’s no order to it. There’s no plan for evangelism that people could follow. It just happens.”

(Operation Evangelization is a conference-wide initiative led by Florida Bishop Cornelius L. Henderson. It’s goal is to have 400,000 disciples in the Florida conference by May 2000. This story is one example of a church whose outreach ministry is bringing people in the community into the life of the church.)