Thrift shop is having to bargain with staff shortages
Staff writer
The unassuming St. Luke Auxiliary Shoppe operates differently from every other store in Marion.
It is open only two days a week, and even then, only for half a day.
Still, it is facing an uphill battle finding enough staff to keep it operational.
The shop sells a hodgepodge of donated items dirt cheap. Blue jeans hover around $3 and can go as low as 50 cents, while baseball caps are a quarter each. Profits go exclusively to St. Luke Hospital.
Most uniquely, the shop is staffed entirely by volunteers, most of them seniors, who have worked tirelessly to turn it into arguably the most successful retailer in town.
St. Luke Auxiliary was formed in 1973 to raise money for Marion’s hospital.
The thrift shop is newer. It opened on the north side of Main St. in 2005 before relocating to its current site in 2013.
By 2023, the auxiliary shop had raised more than $1 million for the hospital. With many items selling for less than a dollar, it was a remarkable accomplishment.
The only real decor the white-walled store possesses is a banner informing shoppers of this fact, though it is, of course, outdated; the number these days is more than $1.2 million.
“A lot of local people come in, particularly families with small children,” treasurer Peggy Blackman said. “Saturday mornings, you can’t find a parking place, because we get people in from everywhere. The lake has been a big help. There are a lot of people from the lake that have homes or cabins and get visitors in.”
The shop relies on a mass of volunteers to operate each week.
Fourteen work as cashier-bagger duos. The store places one person at each register solely to bag. It may look a bit silly on slow days but improves transaction speed significantly when the store is busy. Another group remains in the back of the store, pricing, organizing, and cleaning donations.
Betty Johnson, a frequent volunteer, used a metal rod to scrape grime from the bottom of a pair of donated shoes Friday.
She has worked at the store since 2009.
“It fills a void that the community needs,” she said.
Manager Mary Ann Conyers — affectionately known by her initials as “Mac” — has been with the shop since 2014.
On Saturday, Conyers fluttered around the second floor, picking out artificial flowers and wire sculptures to use in her weekly window display.
“You have to have a theme, not just tchotchkes,” she said.
The second floor, off-limits to customers, is arguably the most interesting part of the building. Most of that is because of the work of Walter Hein, a chatty co-chairman of St. Luke Auxiliary. Years ago, Hein made the faithful choice to use cardboard banana crates to house surplus items.
Hundreds of banana crates now dominate the room, all neatly stacked and organized by Hein in a thrifted Library of Babel.
Hein wore a straw hat, orange-tinted glasses, and an assortment of colorful jewelry Saturday, a look at once agrarian and gaudy.
He is one of two men who regularly volunteer.
The other is Don Molleker, a calm if quirky preservationist responsible for lifting heavy furniture, cleaning and dusting antiques, and scrapping the material that builds up from unwanted donations.
Saturday, Molleker was hard at work setting up a large beige recliner ($35), which he then moved into one of the shop aisles. He donned a shirt that said “I’d rather do it myself.”
So dedicated is Molleker to conservation that he apparently smashes up every aluminum can he uses to recycle as scrap. He also likes to take home material found in the shop.
“I’d hate to see his house.” Hein joked.
The shop receives about 80% of its products from the Marion community, Blackman said.
The rest come from elsewhere in Kansas, usually people who have visited the shop and prefer donating to it instead of to a larger chain.
“They see how clean and how nice we keep the shop, and they know that it’s going to our hospital,” Blackman said. “We had a woman who had been closing down her bridal shop in Hutchinson, and so instead of giving them to Goodwill or the other larger organizations, she brought seven beautiful brand new bridal dresses.”
The shop accepts all kinds of clothes, decorations, and appliances. Donations vary based on “who dies and when the kids clean out the garage,” as Molleker put it.
Things to avoid donating include lawn mowers, large equipment, and computers with unknown origins.
Clothes with holes or stains will be sent by the shop to mission organizations in Wichita and El Dorado.
“Though you have to be careful with these jeans that purposely have holes in them,” Blackman said.
The number of products is never a problem for the shop. Sometimes, the auxiliary gets so full it must stop accepting donations until items are sold.
Downstairs, Blackman and another woman stood behind a register.
Behind the store’s two registers, slightly more upscale items are kept. Among them are designer handbags ($20 to $80), a working receipt machine ($20), and an atlas from 1899 ($25, slightly used).
The most expensive item in the store was nearby: an antique Red Wing crock ($225). It’s rare the shop has such a specialty item; volunteers expected it to be gone within the week.
Roughly $3,500 is raised by the shop each weekend. During the busiest days of the year, the number has exceeded $10,000.
Cash is king at the auxiliary. The taxes and training that come with card readers, Blackman said, creates more trouble than the machines are worth. (Sales tax is still calculated with a punchy old register.)
The store does accept checks, though this is contentious, as the biggest scam in auxiliary history involved a couple of ne’er-do-wells stealing $400 worth of goods with a phony check. (Police eventually tracked both thieves down.)
The store no doubt could generate more money with stricter business practices. Clothes are frequently given away to those in need, half-price sales are frequent, and an unspoken rule is that low-income residents can sometimes barter at the register. Still, its communal ethos is beautiful, even inspiring.
When items are so cheap, and workers work for free, it becomes easy to feel a part of something greater than yourself.
But the shop can work only if enough people sign up to volunteer, and staffing is by far the biggest issue facing the auxiliary.
“We’re all getting old,” Blackman said. “I’d say the average age of the shop is between 75 and 80.”
While the shop’s website lists 150 volunteers, Blackman said she could depend on only around 50 to pick up a shift.
Some key volunteers, like Barbara Hardin, are moving out of town later in the summer, and others are at the end of their tether.
“Mac has worked 11 years, and she’s getting tired,” Blackman said.
Globalization and an emphasis on the individual in society has made it difficult to convince young people to volunteer.
“I moved to Marion in 1972, and at that time… you didn’t have the freedom and mobility you have today,” Blackman said. Nowadays, adults “want to keep their weekends free, go to their sports activities, their family activities, their vacations.”
Some hospital staff volunteer on occasion.
St. Luke marketing director Keri Collett was working the register Friday.
Collett said St. Luke Foundation was working on recruiting more volunteers.
“There was talk about maybe doing an open house for people to see the stations and putting it out for advertising,” she said. “Maybe talking to some high school students. … It hasn’t really come to fruition yet.”
Convincing recent retirees to volunteer probably will be the shop’s best bet.
“We’ve had some new volunteers come in that are younger, but you have to realize, young, to me, could be 60 years old,” Blackman said.
A problem with exclusively elderly volunteers is the physical strain the work demands.
Molleker seems to be the only regular capable of lifting heavy furniture.
A conveyor belt leading to the second floor has been a life-saver in transporting objects up and down stairs.
“We certainly need some male volunteers to fill in… to help carry heavy things in or to unload the furniture,” Blackman said.
Hein expressed a hopelessness towards recent recruitment efforts.
“I could care less if we tried to get more,” he said. “We’ve tried everything.”
While St. Luke could survive without its thrift shop, the money the auxiliary has contributed to the hospital is significant.
It has financed new equipment and even branches of the building. The shop is honored with a multitude of plaques on hospital walls.
More than that, the shop is community-led in the best kind of way.
Its unflappably selfless way of doing things almost forces neighbors to care about each other, and the process puts some of the cheapest clothes and decorations in the hands of those who need them most.
Collett was confident the shop wouldn’t be shutting down anytime soon.
“Ultimately, the Auxiliary is under the umbrella of the Foundation,” she said. “And I don’t think we’d let it.”