Whenever she’s in the store, Marion Reid sifts through the racks at Family Closet Thrift Center in Warner, making space for new arrivals and checking the current inventory.
Each piece gets reviewed. She evaluates an item’s condition, style and whether or not to discount it. Donated spring and summer clothing lines the walls, and in the middle of the store sit round clothing racks brimming with options.
“If the racks are getting too crowded or we need to do a sale or we need a refresh on the shop and rearrange things, that sort of falls on me,” she said.
She wears that responsibility gracefully, doing it all as a volunteer. Reid grew up in Salisbury and worked as a nurse at hospitals in Maine and New Hampshire, including Concord Hospital, before becoming a stay-at-home mother and her parents’ caretaker.
When her mother passed away two years ago, she set out to volunteer. That’s when she found the Warner Area Food Pantry through her friend Apryl Blood, the pantry’s coordinator.
During the pandemic, as more and more residents dropped off clothing donations, fellow volunteer Patty Anderson had the idea to found a thrift center above the pantry to accomplish several goals: to repurpose the clothing in a sustainable way, to allow people to buy clothes they loved at a reasonable price and to generate a steady flow of revenue to support the food pantry’s mission.
“As a parent, just the stress of worrying about food and not having enough, I can’t imagine what that would be like,” Reid said. “That’s what sort of drew me there.”
“A nurse by training, I love helping any way I can,” she added.
The pantry operates like a grocery store where clients are able to pick the items they need according to their dietary restrictions and preferences.
Reid was initially tasked with getting the products the clients chose and packaging them. She took over the thrift center when Anderson retired, leaving the pantry fully staffed so she could have the flexibility to move upstairs and maintain the store.
Before Reid took over the thrift center, she would sometimes drive to a secondhand store in Littleton simply to get away. Eventually, the store shut down, but Reid was thrilled to be able to create a spot like it in her own town.
“It gets to the point where you want to take part in your community,” she said. “This is a need too: to feel good about how you look, it’s a different type of need than food, but it’s still important.”
Customers can find everything from jewelry and other trinkets to formal dresses, bathing suits and even scrubs for healthcare workers at the thrift center.
“It’s been very rewarding. We have a great team, a grateful customer base, and people who very generously donate their clothing,” she said. “And all said, I can manage the work and still be home with my children in the afternoon. I am grateful for this.”
