The Rendezvous Thrift Store is filled with gems. There’s an insulated mug from Bannack, Montana – “The First Best Place!” – with a strangely ominous message printed on the side by a label maker: “Wilderness makes David better.” $1. Nearby, a coffee maker that’s somehow also a radio. $15. In the back, a full antique bed frame with bookshelves and drawers. $70.
Standing among all of this stuff was the thrift store’s manager, Rusty Anderson.
“I enjoyed my years here and I’m off to bigger and better things. So yeah, time to move on,” he said, looking around.
Anderson has worked at the thrift store for nearly 15 years, almost as long as it has been open. The store is owned by Rendezvous Senior Day Services, a nonprofit adult day center for Ketchikan’s elders and disabled. The store has also supported other local nonprofits during its tenure, like Women in Safe Homes, the domestic violence shelter, and the Ketchikan Reentry Coalition – the thrift store employed the coalition’s clients in the first months after they were released from prison so they could get back on their feet. The store also ran a foodbank and donated clothes to the island’s homeless population.
“It’s done more for the community than it’s given credit for,” said Conner Pope, the director of Rendezvous Senior Day Services.
Pope took the helm at the nonprofit earlier this year and said he faced a big problem early on. Historically, the thrift store had always financially supported the senior center. In the last couple years though, that reversed. He said the thrift store was in the red and they were taking money away from their senior services to keep it afloat.
“It’s become time to kind of part ways, which is a horribly difficult decision,” he said.
Pope cited two reasons for the closure. The first was the State of Alaska dramatically slashing grant funding for all adult day services across the state. Earlier this year, Governor Mike Dunleavy enacted a state budget that cut money for community-based grants for senior services by roughly $2.7 million. In a press release, Rendezvous said that it’s left small town nonprofits like them that are competing with the price of living “squeezed to the point of difficult decisions.”
The other challenge came from within the community.
“There’s a lot of unusable items, and a lot of items that should be brought to the dump,” said Pope.
“We get a lot of trash,” Anderson added.
According to Anderson, the amount of things people would donate or drop off outside the store after hours grew to “avalanche proportions.”
“We get microwaves that have food still in them, dirty, filthy. We just don’t have the people or the staff to be able to have one person clean everything top to bottom and put it out,” he said.
In this case, one man’s trash was another man’s headache. Anderson said the store sold things for so cheap they were losing money trying to clean the bags of rain-drenched and soiled clothes that greeted them every morning. That paled in comparison, though, to what they were paying for dumpsters and trash removal.
“I believe the last time I checked it was roughly $16,000 for the year is what we’re paying,” he said about their trash removal bill.
Pope said they tried to work something out with the city’s waste disposal to deal with the secondhand trash for years but it fell on deaf ears.
“Since I’ve started, I called the city manager, and I was told there wasn’t much we could do,” he said.
Anderson hoped something would happen, though.
“The community needs it, you know, it definitely does,” he said about the store he managed for so long.
Then, something did happen.
“We got a letter from the Rendezvous stating that they were going to close and I was like, ‘No, no, that’s not happening,’” said Tamra Chenhall, Rendezvous Thrift Store’s new owner. She stood in the donation bay of the store sorting bags of clothing and kids toys.
Chenhall has been the store’s assistant manager for years.
“I feel good and nervous and like it’s not real,” she said about her successful purchase of the store.
“I respect her a lot for it. I think she’s a ball of fire, and I think she’s got nothing but gumption towards making this place the best it can be,” Pope said about Chenhall.
For the store’s new owner, Rendezvous is necessary for Ketchikan as it’s one of the only places to purchase affordable items and furniture in a community that is getting more and more expensive. When she found out the senior center was divesting from the store, she made an offer.
“I’m gonna try to keep it as close to what it is now as possible,” she said.
Chenhall’s Rendezvous will be a little bit different, though. It will be a for-profit business, meaning it won’t offer the community service opportunities the former nonprofit leadership did and they are unable to print off tax slips for donations.
As far as the garbage though, Chenhall, Pope, and Anderson hope there will be a cultural change in the community, more respect for the store and the quality of donations. If you wouldn’t give it to your grandparents, Pope says, it’s probably not right for Rendezvous.
“You know, fairly new, lightly used appliances. Newer clothes. Couches that don’t have rips or tears or are broken,” said Anderson. “They drop off after hours and in the pouring rain, and then by the time we get here in the morning, it’s no good, you know, because it’s all soaking wet.”
Chenhall said people in the community have already offered to help the store dig its way out.
“I’ve had a lot of support from the community stating that they would help take loads of trash to the dump,” she said.
Chenhall plans to retain all seven of the store’s current employees. She hopes to reopen the thrift store in December.
