VNA Thrift Shop Starts A New Chapter In Its Long History

By Jan Howard

The Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) Thrift Shop, located at the rear of Edmond Town Hall, is open for business again.

Following its closing at the end of July, extensive work was done by residents Mary Tietjen and Bea Gellert in the shop to make it an attractive place to browse and buy.

The shop is looking for quality donations of clothing and small housewares.

The hours of the Thrift Shop remain the same: Saturday, from 9 am to noon, and Wednesday, from noon to 3 pm. Donations should be dropped off during these hours.

“Come and visit our shop. You will be pleasantly surprised,” said Ms Tietjen, past president of the VNA and a member of its board.

Funds raised at the shop are used for nursing services for people unable to pay, Ms Tietjen said. “It goes to a very good cause,” she said.

The shop offers men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, toys, books, and small household goods, such as dishes. It also has holiday and seasonal items for sale.

The shop also holds specialty sales during the year, such as vintage clothing, and at Christmas.

The VNA Thrift Shop was founded in 1938 by a committee of the VNA Board of Directors, who were concerned about the lack of dental services for Newtown’s school aged children. There were no school hygienists, and there were only a few dentists in this area.

The members of the committee, who today would be considered activists, established the Thrift Shop to raise money to fund a dental program and buy dental equipment for school children.

Mrs F.H. Duncombe was chairman of the committee. The first members were Mrs F. B. Stoddard, Susan J. Scudder, Mrs F.H. Budd, Mrs R.M. Leonard, and Mrs Carl LeGrow.

The shop was originally located in the rear and under the A&P Store in the Atchinson Building, later known as the Chase Building and the Gold building. The shop had a potbelly stove, wide wooden floor boards, and tables full of merchandise.

For many years, Mr and Mrs Joseph Chase, owners of the building, generously provided rent-free space for the shop and supplied heat and electricity as well, which enabled 100 percent of the shop’s profits to be used for needy Newtown school children’s dental and milk programs.

The Thrift Shop was open most Saturdays from 10 am to 2 pm and occasionally until 4:30 pm. Those wishing to make donations when the shop was not open left bundles of clothes in the lobby of the Hawley Manor Inn.

The first urgent call from the Thrift Shop Committee was for supplies, such as coat hangers, paper bags, and furniture. The only offer of a table turned out to be a massive oak desk that had seen better days and at least several layers of colored enamel paint. When the VNA Thrift Shop moved to its Town Hall location, no one wanted to move the old, heavy desk. Finally a board member had it moved to her home where she removed 12 coats of hardened paint and restored the red oak desk to its original beauty.

In the early days of the Thrift Shop, The Newtown Bee consistently reported shop activities on the front page, usually next to or directly below church news.

The Thrift Shop provided an inexpensive, and often free, way for needy people to provide good, serviceable clothing for their families. Prices in those early days were in the pennies, five, ten, or 15 cents. Because of the quality of the merchandise donated, the Thrift Shop also attracted a following of antiques collectors.

Mrs Duncombe, in addition to being the first committee chairman, was also the original manager of the shop. The shop became an immediate success.

Early fund raising efforts included a Bundle Bridge Party. Ladies were invited to pay bridge, pinochle, or Chinese checkers and, if they brought a bundle of clothes, they could play for 25 cents – otherwise it cost 50 cents. A major achievement was to raise $37.

A Bargain Day sale was another favorite promotion, during which the shop’s already low prices were reduced. A $5 day at the shop was considered a successful day. By 1941, three years after its founding, the Thrift Shop Committee boasted it had raised $1,200.

When the Tuberculosis Association of Fairfield County stopped supporting the Newtown school milk program, proceeds of the Thrift Shop supported the free milk program in local schools.

In 1952, the Thrift Shop closed its separate bank account and began to co-mingle funds with the VNA. The shop turned over to the VNA a bank account of $5,587.53 with the stipulation the funds would be used for dental programs and equipment in the schools. If those programs were discontinued, the money was to benefit children in some way. The Thrift Shop shared the salary of the dental hygienist until 1956 when the Board of Education was able to budget to pay the full salary. The VNA continued to pay for the remedial work. At that time, Hawley School and the High School boasted their own dental chairs.

In time, the Board of Education provided nursing and dental services, and with the advent of Medicare, the state Department of Health required the VNA to give up its charity programs, such as dental and milk programs.

Today, Thrift Shop revenues help support well child conferences and clinics, pre-school eye screening, ear screening, inoculations and immunizations, and other services for pre-school and school age children.