A shopper: takes advantage of Goodwill’s closing sale to purchase items of clothing. The store closed Saturday after 36 years in business. JD Schein / ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
For the first time in 36 years, the Auburn-Opelika area will not have a Goodwill store of its own.
The Opelika Goodwill retail store, located on Avenue C, closed its doors for good Saturday. The store was in that location for more than 20 years.
The closing was because of a lack of donations from the area.
Store manager Jeff Weynand said donations had continued to drop for the last year, and it was too expensive to ship in clothing and goods from other areas to keep the store open.
Kari Finley, media and events manager for Goodwill, said from a business standpoint, they tried to get a yearly donation average of $5 per square foot at each store.
“What we have been typically running in Opelika over the last several years is $2,” Finley said.
Goodwill plans to open a new store in the Auburn-Opelika area in the near future.
Finley said the new store will feature a career center, a free service to help people with job training and placement. New stores in other areas have also focused on this mission of Goodwill, as opposed to only being a place to buy inexpensive clothes.
“Every dollar that we generate through selling donations, that goes back to funding our mission,” Finley said. “I don’t think a lot of people realize that.”
The Goodwill Human Resources Department has tried to help the employees of the Opelika store find new jobs. Weynand said some of the employees took positions at other Goodwill locations.
“There still will be a few people here working for Goodwill in the area accepting donations,” Weynand said.
Heather Hanby, 19, did not stay with Goodwill. An employee since last August, she said she will miss two things in particular.
“I like the people that I work with, the cheap clothes,” Hanby said.
Goodwill Industries has 13 retail stores and two career centers in east Alabama and west Georgia. According to its Feb. 29 news release, it placed 2,035 people into employment in 2007.
Weynand said Goodwill hopes to open the new Opelika store sometime in 2009. However, that will depend largely on the amounts of donations that come in.
“In the near future, as fast as we can get our donations up, we are going to be back in the community,” Weynand said.
Belinda Brinkley, a local resident and Goodwill customer for more than 13 years, was disappointed about the store closing. A fan of both the shopping and the help to the community, she said she hoped people in the area would respond.
“I would tell them to think about someone other than themselves, because there are needy people out there,” Brinkley said. “I would tell them to donate. It’s a good cause.”
The Avenue C donation center will remain open until May when the lease expires.
Other local donation centers can be found at Bent Creek Groceries in Opelika and at the Opelika Wal-Mart.
