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Thrifty treasures come to Ashburn
In Ashburn, there is a new place for thrifty shoppers to hunt for their own personal treasure.
The Good Shepherd Alliance has opened its thrift store, Hope's Treasures, at a temporary location in the Ashburn Square shopping center.
The store will be open there for a few months until it moves next door to the new Center of Hope on Ashburn Road, once it is ready to be occupied.
"It's all really one-of-a-kind stuff," said Hope's Treasures Manager Mary Fittro. "It's one of those places where, if you don't get it today, it's gone tomorrow."
Some of the items sold in the store include brand-new clothing, furniture, home-school supplies, jewelry, books and antique collectibles.
Almost everything in the store was donated, and all of the proceeds from sales go toward the Good Shepherd Alliance, which works to help the homeless in Loudoun County.
"Most of the stuff here is the nicer stuff," Fittro said. "It's a little more upscale than one may think. Some people have a negative connotation with the word 'thrift store,' but our clientele are a wide mix of people from all income levels."
There is something for everyone at Hope's Treasure, including a line of items from the Greater Gift program sponsored by SERRV International, a nonprofit alternative trading organization that works with thousands of small-scale artisans and farmers in developing regions of the world.
"These are feel-good gifts," Fittro said. "You know what you buy, the artisan was paid a fair wage for that."
Some of these pieces include handmade baskets from Thailand, jewelry from Mexico and rich, creamy chocolate from a company called Divine in Ghana, owned by the chocolate farmers themselves.
Some of the Greater Gift items were handmade by people living in poverty in the United States.
For example, some soaps for sale at Hope's Treasures were made by homeless women at a shelter in Chicago.
A line of one-of-a-kind pins for sale called House Pins was designed by Lucinda Yates, a woman who spent time in a homeless shelter in Maine. Now she sells her pieces only to nonprofits for fundraising purposes.
"You know when you're purchasing those, you're helping someone else," Fittro said. "You know you're doing something good."
That's part of what makes shopping at Hope's Treasures special.
Another part of it is just the joy of hunting through the store for a treasure, she said.
On opening day, March 12, a woman came in and purchased a brand-new North Face jacket with tags for $10.
Another special item is a collection of retired Longaberger baskets, which are hard to find and in demand, Fittro said.
"We get all kinds of stuff at this store ... ," she said. "It's not the type of thing you'll find in a regular store. You never know what you're going to find."
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