Petaluma thrift stores that fund community services eager to sell items again

Petaluma thrift stores, closed during the pandemic, see a surge in donations but fear losing customers.|

It only took a handful of donation days for Sacks Hospice Thrift Store Manager Donna Lippi to feel overwhelmed.

After nearly two months of closure and a voicemail box brimming with inquiries, the Liberty Street store cautiously began holding brief donation windows last month over the span of three weeks. It took just two hours for the thrift store’s back storage room to fill up with mountains of used items the first day.

“It was like playing Jenga,” Lippi said. “I’m piling everything on top of each other just hoping it doesn’t all fall over.”

Lippi said she had to start turning people away, unable to make room for the piles of clothes, linens and household items they cradled in their arms.

For the few small, donation-based thrift stores in Petaluma, plenty of items are coming in, the fruits of boredom-induced spring cleaning projects. But with retail restricted and a public wary of second-hand items during the pandemic, businesses like Sacks are unsure whether the leisurely and tactile thrifting experience will bounce back and they’ll be able to unload their growing cache of donated items.

More crucially, the inability to sell items means the nonprofits and community programs that Sack’s Hospice Thrift Store, Alphabet Soup and Petaluma Pet Pals Thrift Store directly fund are increasingly struggling.

For nearly 33 years Sacks Hospice Thrift Store has funded the free grief services program administered by St. Joseph Health, assisting local families during times of need.

“For us, not bringing in any money has definitely affected the financial bank for these services, so we can’t wait to get back to work so we can continue to fund that program,” Lippi said.

Nearby, it’s a similar line from the manager of the Alphabet Soup Thrift Stores, Adrienne Kulasingam, who oversees its two locations on Western Avenue.

Like Sacks, Alphabet Soup was established to raise money for community services. Each year its sales provide upwards of $100,000 to the Petaluma Educational Foundation, which gives thousands in scholarships and support to local students.

“Our main goal is to provide a giveback to Petaluma Educational Foundation,” Kulasingam said. “The most concerning thing to me is that even if we do open, we want to be able to sell enough to fund them. Our revenue has basically been zero since we closed in March.”

Kulasingam said although the store obtained a federal small business loan, all employees have been furloughed. They opened for a few days to accept donations, but ran into the same issue as Sacks: with no way to sell items, there’s only so much they can take in.

The youngest thrift store of the trio, PETaluma PET Pals Great Stuff Thrift Store, is nearing its third year tucked away in the Petaluma Outlet Malls.

Sale of its eclectic mix of items funds animal care and rescue services, adopting fragile dogs and cats from shelters throughout Sonoma County and the Central Valley.

Unable to open its doors and currently not accepting donations, store manager and president of the nonprofit rescue service Shannon Frieberg says her organization’s coffers are taking a serious hit. After rent and utility payments, all of the store’s profits go toward animal care with special focus on rehabilitating sick, injured and bottle-fed dogs and cats.

“We’re kind of going paycheck to paycheck at this point,” Frieberg said. “Last year we brought in a group of kittens with medical cases. But now I have to ask whether a kitten is sick before I take them because of cost of care, and I really don’t want to be making that kind of decision.”

Over the last two years, the store has funneled between $4,000 and $8,000 a month into the Petaluma Pet Pals nonprofit. This time of year, Frieberg and about two dozen volunteers would be gearing up for a busy season as warm weather brings more kitten litters into area shelters. Since the shelter-in-place started, the group brought in a little over 30 kittens. That’s less than half of the amount they were able to rescue at the same time last year.

Yet cuts in funding at other animal care facilities could mean this summer brings even more kittens in need, a potentially compounded problem.

“There’s really no spaying and neutering at clinics right now, and that’s likely going to greatly impact the season,” Frieberg said. “We’re nervous about what the season will look like, because we don’t have any money coming in but we’re expecting to see more litters.”

While all stores grapple with how the organizations and services their sales fund will fare over the next few months, they’ve also got their hands full preparing for an eventual loosening of retail restrictions.

All three store managers are contemplating just how open Petalumans will be to visiting thrift stores and perusing second-hand goods, despite sanitizing measures.

“It might be a tricky idea for people coming in, especially on clothes,” Kulasingam said. “Although we’ve been told the virus doesn’t seem to live long on fabric, it might be hard for people to get their minds around.”

Currently, all donated items submitted to Sacks and Alphabet Soup go through a three-day quarantine before staffers and volunteers touch the items again for inventory and to place on shelves. Whether that process, along with a diligent cleaning schedule and staffers wearing masks and gloves will provide customers with enough comfort is something Kulasingam said remains to be seen.

In the meantime, Donna Lippi is spending much of her days fielding emails and phone calls from residents all asking the same two questions: “Are you taking donations,” and “When are you reopening?”

“Once our doors do open up, one thing is certain, we’re definitely going to have an abundance of stuff for shoppers,” Lippi said.

(Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.)

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