The Wright City Thrift Store in Wright City officially reopened its doors on Oct. 1.
This item is available in full to subscribers.
We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.
If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, or you are a print subscriber who had access to our previous wesbite, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you have not yet logged in to your account on this new site.
If you are a current print subscriber and did not have a user account on our previous website, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue |
An earlier version of this story referred to the "Good Shepherd Thrift Store," since reopening they have rebranded as the Wright City Thrift Store, it has since been corrected. The Record regrets the error.
The Wright City Thrift Store in Wright City officially reopened its doors on Oct. 1. The store had been closed following the decision by former owner St. John’s Lutheran Church to divest from the property, which also included the Good Shepherd Daycare, in May.
St. John’s Pastor Jerry Klaustermeier said the decision to divest was purely a financial one and the church simply did not have the funds to cover rising insurance costs related to the daycare.
In late August, Rachel Hakim announced that she and her husband, Wright City Aldermen Ramiz Hakim, had purchased the property and planned to help the daycare and thrift store reopen.
“When this property became available, my husband and I saw an opportunity, not just to invest in real estate, but to invest in the future of Wright City,” Rachel said at the Aug. 22 Wright City Board of Aldermen meeting.
That sale was finalized on Sept. 15, according to Ramiz, and after some renovations, the thrift store has reopened.
According to Board Member John Nadler, volunteers used the time off to renovate the store, reordering the aisles, cleaning the sales floor and repainting the interior.
“We really did a different footprint for the store, a different look for the store, paint updates, clean up, so it’s still early, but it’s a new look for us,” said Nadler.
He continued, saying there was significant work to be done by volunteers to get the store back in shape and reorganized so that shoppers would have a better experience.
“We had to remove clothing shelves, racks, and then move the clothing all along the inside wall from left to right,” said Nadler. “A lot of our top shelves will also have to be removed, so we put tables up for our household appliances, they’re all in one location now rather than scattered throughout.”
The store plans to remain open with the same hours as before they closed, opening Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The store has a variety of options at a low cost for shoppers in need from clothing, to appliances, to decorations, to DVDs.
“We hope to have items that the community still wants and can afford and that we can still donate to the charities that we do, such as the schools,” said Nadler.
While the thrift store and the daycare did operate in conjunction with each other in the past, the daycare is now a separate tenant that is hoping to open in the near future.
Ramiz had previously stated that the new daycare operators hoped to open their facility roughly 90 days after the closing of the property, placing a potential opening around the end of the year.
