Thrift shop, community closet change location, reopen for business

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  After being closed for almost six weeks, the thrift shop and community closet have relocated to Building 644 (formerly the arts and crafts facility, near the 100th Security Forces Squadron building) and reopened Feb. 2.

The facilities are now housed in a much larger building, allowing room for more items and larger items than were previously available.

According to Jennifer Jones, thrift shop manager, the store is run by both the Officers Spouses' Club and the Enlisted Spouses' Club, and all profits from the items sold there go to fill philanthropic requests made to the clubs. The community closet is run by the Enlisted Spouses' Club, and all its items are free to the base community for personal use.

"We take consignments between 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) and customers can consign 15 items - with a limit of five of any one type of item, such as five DVDs, five books and five clothing items," she said. "They just have to come in and start an account, and we'll get them started."

Thrift shop consignments are items people wish to sell. They get 80 percent of the sale price, and the thrift shop gets 20 percent.

"The funds raised are given back to the community, and include charities and scholarship funds," said Nicole Nance, thrift shop volunteer and MOCSC member.

There is a list of items that the thrift shop and community closet cannot take, but the main one is infant car seats.

"The UK has very strict rules about car seats, and we aren't comfortable selling or giving away items that are designed for the safety of an infant in such a major way," said Mrs. Jones.

The community closet now takes electrical items of British, American and German voltage. Having more space allows them to take a lot more items, according to Craig McElfresh, one of the volunteers there.

"We can take larger items now, such as furniture, but people should either come by or contact us before bringing those items over, just to make sure we have the space to take them at that time," Mr. McElfresh said.

The thrift shop and community closet are open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the first Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Only military members and their spouses are authorized to use the thrift shop. However, the community closet is open to all base ID cardholders, including Ministry of Defence civilians.