Kenneth Young Center to rely more on resale shop
A major remodeling of the Kenneth Young Center Resale Shop in Schaumburg is accompanying what may become a greater reliance on the shop for revenue if the state makes anticipated cuts to mental health and senior services.
The shop started in 1981 at a different location to provide financial assistance to not only Elk Grove Village-based Kenneth Young Center but five other social service agencies.
The number of agencies gradually dwindled to Kenneth Young Center and Shelter Inc. until they both grew large enough to have their own separate resale shops.
Kenneth Young Center's shop is now at 1150 S. Roselle Road, in the strip mall at the southwest corner of Wise Road, communications coordinator Betty Jones said.
The shop has been in its current location for six years, moving from another space in the mall that was only a third as large.
But the major renovation of the past few weeks came about from a number of different factors.
The first was the landlord's offer to recarpet the store and allow use of an empty space as storage in the meantime.
Because this was happening, volunteers decided to paint the walls a more attractive, atmospheric color than the stark off-white it was.
Then a Pier One going out of business offered its fixtures, while a local college student donated his handyman skills to put up shelves.
The Resale Shop, which currently brings in about $50,000 a year, is now gearing up for a grand reopening on April 24, featuring a sidewalk sale and ice cream served from noon to 4 p.m.
"We want to make this store more important in the community and more important to us (at Kenneth Young Center)," Jones said. "Some people think thrift shops are for needy people. They can be. But some people don't realize what else they can be."
Jones said the regular customers at the shop come in for a variety of reasons. Some are trying to save money. Some are trying to be environmentally conscious. Others are there for the adventure of discovery, while still others are consciously donating to charity.
On Friday morning, a small group was already gathered outside the store at 10 a.m., waiting for the doors to open.
Lee Sutcliffe said he's been to the store about a dozen times since he moved to the neighborhood last year. Normally, he's there to look for music, but on Friday he came looking for a desktop bell normally used for a customer to call for service at a store.
Sutcliffe said he wanted one to see if he could train his dog to use it to communicate having to go outside.
Though the shop has one it uses for its business, Jones found a second bell underneath the counter and sold it for $1.
She said the incident reflects the wide variety of items most people don't know they can find at a resale shop. Women's clothes and furniture are the most popular items, but books, videos, toys and antiques are also in abundance.
Kenneth Young Center CEO Mitch Bruski said that the importance of the shop may soon rise dramatically. If Gov. Pat Quinn's budget is approved, the center would lose about 40 percent of its funding and the ability to serve anyone without Medicaid or insurance coverage.
He predicted about 700 mental health patients served by his agency would lose service as well as nearly as many seniors. The Kenneth Young Center is a not-for-profit that provides both counseling and a full range of services for both mental health patients and seniors.
The new health care bill won't help the uninsured as quickly as the state budget will cut them off, he said.
While Bruski said he hopes others will join him in trying to persuade legislators to raise more money for these services, he also would like them to shop more at the Resale Shop.