Budget crunch closes doors on community thrift stores
"We were told to slash and cut and make it all disappear," said Marla Thomas, the store manager, motioning to shelves of secondhand merchandise — from jackets and Tupperware containers to Teletubby dolls, old-style cameras and plastic religious icons.
When residents of this rural East King County town came in for bargains last week, many were shocked to hear the store was closing.
"It's a disaster for the town," said Bev Thomas, who was buying fabric for her small sewing business. "I buy everything here. We really depended on this store."
Despite community outcry, the Carnation store shut its doors for good on Saturday, one of three Society of St. Vincent de Paul thrift stores in the Seattle area to close since May. The closures are part of an effort to cut operating costs of the society's local branch — the Seattle Council — by nearly a fourth this year.
Steven Pearson, the council's new executive director, said the effort is for the good of the nonprofit charity, which a couple years ago was on the brink of financial collapse.
Pearson, known for his outspokenness, said the society, which has an 84-year history in Seattle, needs to become more efficient and profit-focused in order to keep its larger mission alive.
"If we're running a poorly run operation, we're not helping anyone," he said.
In August, the council in Portland shut all six of its stores, citing increased competition.
Eugene Smith, national president of St. Vincent de Paul, said the organization's 317 stores have felt pressure nationwide from a record number of for-profit thrift stores entering the market, and from discounters such as Wal-Mart and Kmart that "are able to offer new nearly for what we charge for used."
Smith said local councils, such as Seattle's, are financially autonomous from the national organization and must support themselves through donations and sales.
While Pearson would not say whether any of the other six Seattle-area stores will close, he said there will be no across-the-board closures as happened in Portland, and that some stores in the area are doing well.
Pearson, 49, sporting a gray suit, designer glasses and a shaved head, has all the look of a high-powered CEO. Before assuming the Seattle post, he was executive director of the Pittsburgh council, where in two years he closed six of eight stores, getting the council back into the black.
In March, he was hired by the Seattle Council's board of directors to do the same.
For shoppers at the Carnation store last week, the impending closure was puzzling.
"How can it be a charity and be expected to make money?" asked shopper Dan Coffman, a Sammamish resident who, with his wife, LaRae Coffman, was loading three used chairs into the back of a pickup. "I may be wrong about this, but isn't that what it means to be a nonprofit?"
Another shopper, Andrew Cromarty, a contractor who lives five blocks away, said he wishes the society had tried harder to make things work before shutting it down.
"This store was used by the whole demographic," he said. "They should have tried putting an espresso stand outside or something."
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul was founded in 1833 by Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam, a student of the University of Paris, Sorbonne, who started taking bread and clothing to the poor.
The society is financially independent from the Roman Catholic Church, though it is organized through Catholic parishes. Its chapters are entirely run by volunteers. The Seattle Council, with about 700 volunteers in 53 parishes, provides people with furniture, clothing, job training, transportation and even assistance with rent and utility bills.
At the St. Vincent de Paul main office on Fourth Avenue South, staff members run a food bank that feeds about 500 families a week. Last year, the society donated more than $1 million in direct assistance to the poor.
"That is the less visible but most significant part of our operation," said Joseph Roberts, Seattle Council president. He added that Pearson has the board's full support.
"To continue our mission in East King County, including Carnation, we need to make prudent business decisions," Roberts said.
To Pearson, that means being a good shepherd for the society's revenues, as well as for the poor. "It is my belief that that money we have should not be used to subsidize our operations, which is what it has been doing for the last few years."
Pearson says he doesn't expect certain parts of the charity to make money — such as the food bank or the center that takes calls for assistance. But he believes the thrift shops should serve the needs of the charity, not vice versa.
"Our mission is to help the poor, and the stores are useful to us only in that they further our mission."
In April, Pearson closed a St. Vincent appliance-repair shop at Fourth Avenue South, and the next month he closed the thrift shop at that same location. In July, he closed the thrift store in White Center and a mattress factory near Safeco Field.
So far, 15 of the Seattle Council's 150 employees have been let go, and more cuts will be made Oct. 1.
Thomas, the Carnation store manager, said she understood the closure but lamented it nonetheless. "I'd come back from meetings after seeing the red ink and tell my employees, 'We've got to sell!' " she said.
Some said they know St. Vincent's helps the poorest of the poor, but that the store helped everyone. It also was a meeting place, said shopper Karen Tipton, a local hub that "will be sorely missed for a lot of different reasons."
Brandon Sprague: 206-464-2263
