Council Thrift Shop to close in October

By Jenn Director Knudsen

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Librarian Lin Rainier travels the world wearing clothing and accessories from the National Council of Jewish Women’s Council Thrift Shop.

Soon, she’s off for three weeks to Spain and Portugal, sporting, for example, $3 lightweight black linen slacks she found on one of her weekly tears through the shop.

"I like to dress beautifully and fabulously for little cost," Rainier said in a recent phone interview from her urban apartment. "And the way to do that and still travel abroad is to shop at thrift shops."

Imagine Rainier’s sadness when she learned the Council Thrift Shop is closing its doors.

"I don’t have another niche; I don’t have another to fill the gap," she sighed heavily.

After 43 years in business, the Council Thrift Shop at Southwest Morrison and 12th streets is staging its final storewide sale. Starting Sept. 4, the shop will vacate its substantial 3,500-sq.-ft. space (plus an approximately 2,500-sq.-ft. basement) by October’s end.

Its seeming sea of merchandise—whose value, estimated by an outside close-out sale consultant, is upwards of $30,000—will be sold by Halloween or donated elsewhere, according to past-NCJW president and longtime council member Leah Nepom, 79.

Once profitable, the thrift shop had been losing about $3,000 a month for the past three years.

"[Its] time had passed," said Nepom, a Congregation Neveh Shalom member and grandmother of four.

The decision to close the shop definitively was an emotional one, but in July the NCJW board of directors voted unanimously to shutter the middle-age operation, said Meryl Haber, the Council’s current president who received a gift of life membership to the non-profit upon the birth of her first child in 1982.

In the early 1960s, the Portland Section of the NCJW floated various ideas about how to earn a steady stream of income—to fund itself and its myriad public services, said Nepom, an early proponent of the thrift shop.

The shop idea took hold and opened in 1964, when Millie Gold was board president. In this era, thrift shops did swift business; there were no big-box clothing discounters like Target, Wal-Mart and Value Village to compete with.

One thrift shop expense report, handwritten on ledger paper, shows monthly income for the entire fiscal year 1976 to 1977 wavered between $1,200 and $3,000, according to Anne LeVant Prahl, the Oregon Jewish Museum’s curator of collections.

And there always was a little bump in monthly income following the run up to the NCJW’s annual-and storied-Angel Ball.

The high-class event started as an incentive program; the Council wanted its members to get "into the habit of giving, and giving good items," Nepom said.

Women who donated to the shop at least $200 worth of clothing (at thrift-shop prices) received two coveted free tickets to the evening black-tie affair.

"I just remember my mother wearing very fancy dresses when she went to that," Haber recalled of her mom, Rosemarie Rosenfeld, as she readied for Angel Ball. "And the men wore tuxedos."

Angel Ball ended in the 1980s; now, the thrift shop’s at an end, too.

About 10 years ago, the major shift in volunteerism had taken hold; more and more women were working and no longer volunteering as in the past.

The Council Thrift Shop no longer had its volunteer base to rely on and so hired professionals to manage and staff the store.

Soon, the shop no longer was covering its own expenses, not to mention the Portland section’s programming, said Haber, a member of Congregation Beth Israel.

Previously, shop income went in large part toward making donations to many other non-profits and people in need, such as teen-parent and childcare programs and in the form of vouchers with which low-income women purchased interview and work clothing.

Now, Haber said, the NCJW’s local section-which is 114 years old and nearly 400 members strong-will be able to provide more services without its roughly $3,000 monthly burden to shore up.

"We can actually do more for our community," she added.

In the mean time, the bargains at this bargain-basement thrift shop are staggering.

Covering the expansive (mauve) floor and hanging from the walls are clothing and accessories of every kind imaginable: adults’ every-day duds; children’s toys and clothing; wedding gowns; tea cups and appliances; and vinyl—yes, the precursor to the CD.

Each and every item is half-price. A child’s size-6 rain boot now is $.50; the Barbra Streisand 1984 "Emotion" record is $.50; and the sparkly wedding gown is $50.

Darby Stanfill, 39, a thrift shop regular for four years finds Hanna Andersson clothing for her two daughters and beloved "knickknacks" for herself at the well-organized store, she said.

She especially loves her collection of eight teacups, five of which she scored at the Council Thrift Shop, for about $6 a piece.

"I’m gonna miss it when it’s gone," she said.

For more information about NCJW, contact Linda Fintzy at 503-222-5006 or office@ncjwportland.org or visit www.ncjwportland.org.