Classical music plays softly in the background in an old Victorian house with cheerful, lemon-colored walls and carefully arranged displays of clothing, shoes and knickknacks. The store has the feel of an upscale vintage shop, whose owners carefully select the merchandise for sale, ensuring the best quality.

In fact, this store in the Woodlawn neighborhood of the Bronx is a thrift shop that sells all-donated goods at discount prices. Most clothing and shoes are priced below $10. And the thrift shop has become not only a lovely store and resource for people in need of low-cost goods, but it also has developed into a veritable community center and revenue-maker for its church, St. Stephen’s, Woodlawn.

St. Stephen’s Thrift Shop is housed in the former parish house, next door to the rectory and small church on East 238th Street in the Bronx, only a few blocks from the border to Yonkers. The church’s previous vicar, the Rev. Peter Carey, started the store in 1992 to raise money for St. Stephen’s. Little over a decade later, the shop provides half of the church’s budget.

“Without the thrift shop, St. Stephen’s would not exist,” the Rev. Laurence LeSeure, current Priest-in-Charge, explained.

But it is only in the past few years that the thrift shop has truly come into its own. When LeSeure arrived from Transfiguration, Manhattan, in 2000, he found a run-down, unkempt thrift store, and he knew he needed “to close it or improve it.” Thankfully, for the community and shoppers, the church decided on improvements, including coats of paint, a new roof, flower gardens and, most important, a director with vision.

Jack Hart, a parishioner from Transfiguration, filled the role and transformed the shop into a boutique with thrift store prices. Everything was dutifully organized and displayed and marked with colored tags to indicate what month it arrived, to ensure the merchandise continually turns over. “It has gone from a flea market to a gift shop,” Hart explained, with offerings including jewelry and original artwork.

Hart did not work alone, however. He has the assistance of a group of 18 volunteers who work various hours each week, doing everything from sorting to washing to ironing. Wanda Gee-Delaney, a member of St. Stephen’s and of the thrift shop’s Board of Directors, has volunteered for a number of years and works many hours a week at the store. Most of the volunteers do not come from St. Stephen’s, making the venture even more community-oriented, so the news of the shop has spread to other churches and organizations in the quiet community. To thank the volunteers, a high tea is thrown in their honor every spring at the church.

“It is fun and pleasant,” said Marie Onofrietti, a volunteer, “and everybody enjoys it.” Neighbors stop by to chat, sit on the porch or see what things have been added to the collection.
Since Woodlawn is an area of recent Irish immigrants who are Roman Catholic, it is especially important for St. Stephen’s to reach out to the community. And the thrift shop has done just that as “a service to the neighborhood,” Hart explained.

The success of the thrift shop is based a great deal on the quality of merchandise sold. Hart explained that nothing damaged is put out for sale. And as the store has improved, so have the contributions, which now include nicer clothing and many unused items, some still with price tags. Whatever the thrift store doesn’t need or doesn’t sell within a few months, is then given to various other organizations, including nursing homes and the religious order, Little Sisters of Assumption in Manhattan.

And it is the combination of good quality with low prices that has extended the clientele to shoppers from all over the Bronx, New York City, Westchester County and even farther. The thrift shop does no advertising, so business is based solely on word of mouth.

Bringing in half of the income has made the thrift shop indispensable to St. Stephen’s, a small parish struggling to create a niche in its neighborhood. LeSeure noted that pledges have increased, endowment funds are up and the Christmas Fair the church holds with the thrift shop has also been financially successful.

The parish is comprised of people mostly from the area, but also from other areas of the borough, with mix of Guyanese, West Indians, Indians and African Americans, and everyone, he stressed, is extremely kind and friendly to all newcomers, including his first time at the St. Stephen’s.

Now that the parish is no longer on the Congregational Support Plan, although it can be readmitted in six months, the congregation and LeSeure will be facing some difficult challenges, but the priest-in-charge is optimistic.

“I think this might be a good shock that we need to give ourselves,” he said. There are new plans in the works, including a study to see if parking is an option around the church. LeSeure is enjoying the time he is spending at the church. “I have been very committed to it, and I love it,” he said.

   

   

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