Goodwill opens 12th store in valley
The newest Goodwill of Southern Nevada store opened to lines of shoppers waiting at the doors on Oct. 11. The store at 741 S. Rainbow Blvd. is No. 12 for the charity organization and has 17,000 square feet of selling space.
Besides offering gently used household and clothing items, the location is one of two Goodwill training centers. This training center was made possible by a $50,000 grant from Capital One. To help bring awareness to it, Akita McCulloch, business services specialist for Goodwill’s Career Connections, handed out fliers to let shoppers know of the opportunity to get job training. Paired nearby was a corner offering only career clothes. A flat-screen TV scrolled through hundreds of job listings for the valley.
A new study out of Brigham Young University reveals that middle-income families have changed their shopping mind-set. In the past, people tried to mimic the class above them in their shopping habits. These days, the opposite is happening, the study found, meaning more people are taking advantage of thrift stores.
John Grady, who is on the Goodwill of Southern Nevada Board of Directors, said, “People are coming out of the recession, for lack of a better term, and we all learned to tighten our belts and look for value, look for deals. That’s what you get at a thrift store like Goodwill. You get a quality product at a discounted price. … We allow them to shop for the children who otherwise couldn’t afford school clothes and get the pride of being able to afford to buy things for them.”
Steve Chartrand, Goodwill of Southern Nevada’s president and CEO, said holiday items at the store are mostly new and still in their packaging. He said 98 percent of items are gently used.
The store created 30 new jobs.
