From discounted clothing to financial support for struggling families, the Sacred Heart Thrift Shop in Turlock continues to serve as a community resource for residents and Stanislaus State students alike.
Samantha Gilliam, director and store manager for the Sacred Heart Thrift Shop at 1388 East Ave. in Turlock, discussed how the thrift store supports the local community.
The original Sacred Heart Thrift Shop was founded more than 60 years ago in downtown Turlock before moving into its current building, which was donated by a family previously involved with Sacred Heart Church.
Gilliam has held her position at Sacred Heart Thrift Shop for three years now, helping serve the community by providing financial assistance for families struggling with tuition costs for the Sacred Heart School.
“What I usually tell people is that we are a thrift store, we are 100% non-profit, so what that means is that all of the money we make goes toward helping kids and families that can’t afford tuition to go to school,” Gilliam said.
With this mission in mind, Gilliam said she aims to surpass the store’s sales records each year to help more people throughout the community who are in need.
“Recently there was a teacher, her home burned down and because our sales are so high, we were able to help her and her family,” she said. “So it’s a very gratifying and satisfying feeling to know what you’re doing.”
Sacred Heart Thrift offers a wide variety of items for shoppers, many of which are included in weekly discount specials.
“Tuesdays are 50% off, that’s our busiest day of the week. Saturdays are 25% off, we do a senior and veteran discount on Thursdays, all of our clothes are a dollar and they’re always going to be a dollar, so that is our biggest seller,” she said.
Gilliam hopes that the Sacred Heart Thrift Shop will continue to be involved with both Turlock and Stan State in the future. Because all the proceeds go toward helping a good cause, the store encourages everybody to make donations of items that aren’t in use.
“You can donate every day between nine and three,” she said. “We have a framed sign outside that gives you directions. When you first pull in, there’s two red cones, it gives you instructions, there’s different colored bins, you just place your items there.”
Braydon Johnson (Junior, Creative Media) shared his experience with donating his old toys.
“We donated them because they’re not going to be useful to me if I can’t wear them or if I lose interest in the toys. So we donated to the thrift stores for families that need clothing or young kids that need these toys or just want to play with toys in general,” Johnson said.
Jared Medina (Junior, Creative Media) shared his thoughts on stores like Sacred Heart Thrift, believing these places are good for “alternative kids” since they’re fans of thrift stores.
“I feel a lot of alternative kids love thrift stores because they would dress in cheaper clothing,” Medina said. “I don’t know a lot of those clothes that are expensive, it’s usually from Instagram or something, not from a thrift store, but like most of their clothing items will be from thrifting.”
For anyone looking for affordable clothing or a place to donate unused belongings, Sacred Heart Thrift Shop continues to provide support for local families and the Turlock community.
