St. Teresa Thrift Store is an attractive and spacious retail space that functions, to an extent, like those late, lamented classic department stores — a place to buy just about anything. This thrift store sells housewares, lamps, small appliances, office supplies, books, glassware, sporting goods, and clothing — the list is huge. In keeping with the ethos of the thrift store, the prices are strikingly low: an entire suit for $19.99, bedsheets for $1.99, and shoes for $4.99.
This thrift store is the hub that funds the varied endeavors of St. Teresa Ministries, an outreach that does quite a lot for Bowling Green and Warren County. The store had modest beginnings and has grown exponentially. Low prices and easy access to quality, affordable items are part of the ministry’s ethos, as is paying the thrift store employees a living wage.
“Anybody and everybody in the community donates to the thrift store,” said Jennifer Bailey, the director of development for St. Teresa Ministries. And there is a concerted effort to make the store attractive and user-friendly. The staff sorts through the donated items and then sorts through them again. The items get priced and hit the sales floor. Clearance sales keep the merchandise fresh and rotating through. Everything is priced with a color, which will hit clearance. The store eventually moves onto another color — all for the purpose of keeping the stock attractive.
The thrift store is very cognizant of sustainability. They have partnered with a Nashville recycling company to pick up salvage — clothing that doesn’t sell — which the store ingeniously compresses and packs into bundles. The company picks them up and pays the thrift store by the pound. A different company recycles things like lamps that don’t work. Nothing at St. Teresa Thrift Store goes to waste.
According to Bailey, St. Teresa Ministries’ major mission is to follow the model of combatting food insecurity. To that end, they recently donated over $120,000 to help combat food insecurity in Warren County.
As impressive as this is, it’s not the full extent of their outreach. The ministry also aids the less fortunate working people by giving them a leg up. St. Teresa has supported Habitat for Humanity and Warren County’s Family Enrichment Center. The key is to help financially support organizations offering affordable services to working families.
Rural poverty — always a factor in the United States — has been growing in severity. This is something very apparent to the staff at St. Teresa. “We work with a lot of the family resource coordinators here in the Warren County School District, and we have been getting more and more requests for assistance,” said Bailey. That assistance takes many forms, including contributing to household necessities like pots and pans, bedframes, and sheets. And the reach of St. Teresa Ministries is broad and not limited to just families, kids, or older people.
Bailey doesn’t see the rise in rural poverty as a dramatic increase. Instead, there has been a steady increase over the last decade, with a visible struggle for the middle-income and middle-class demographic. However, the most apparent gauge is food insecurity, which is the arresting factor. “We’ve seen a drastic increase in the number of individuals that are seeking the food pantries here in Warren County.” And there is a visible uptick in the number of people coming into the store to shop for affordable options.
St. Teresa Ministries is eager to get the word out to the community and surrounding areas about what they do — both in terms of their assistance and their thrift store offerings. It is part of the process of giving back to the community of Warren County — a community that Bailey lauds for their support and generosity. On behalf of St. Teresa Ministries, she is exceedingly grateful just to be able to give back in a way that makes a meaningful impact. “It’s just incredible,” she concluded. GN
