Special to The Record
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has relocated and expanded one of its four thrift stores from its original location in Smoketown to the Dorsey Plaza Shopping Center on Shelbyville Road.
The move gives the society a new 8,800-square-foot store and its first location in the East End. Other St. Vincent de Paul Thrift stores are located at 248 E. Market St. and 2217 Hikes Lane in Louisville, and at 428 E. Lewis & Clark Parkway in Clarksville, Ind.
According to a news release from the society the new store “offers affordable prices on quality used furniture, clothing, accessories, toys, dishes, home furnishings and other household and outdoor items.”
The release also said the store featured wide shopping aisles and four dressing rooms. Additional space next to the store, which opened last month, will be used for processing thrift-store donations.
Nancy Naughton, the society’s associate executive director noted that, prior to the opening of the Dorsey Plaza store, St. Vincent de Paul had been “without a retail location convenient to shoppers and donors in the eastern part of the Louisville metro area.”
“We were in need of additional selling space and a well-located donation drop-off site to achieve revenue growth to fund our programs,” she said in the release. “Retail sales from our thrift stores are critical to supporting St. Vincent de Paul’s services for the homeless of our community.”
For example, the society’s Open Hand Kitchen at 1026 S. Jackson St., is expected to serve about 140,000 meals this year, a 17 percent increase from last year, the release said. The soup kitchen serves free lunch and dinner daily to anyone in need.
St. Vincent de Paul’s other programs include a men’s homeless shelter, a women’s residential substance-abuse recovery center and supportive housing and professional case management for formerly homeless men, women and families.
The release noted that all of the profits from retail sales in the society’s four thrift stores go into the programs and services for people in need.
St. Vincent de Paul’s new Dorsey Plaza thrift store is double the size of the Smoketown-area store it replaces. That former store and an adjoining 7,500-square-foot warehouse closed in late April to be rebuilt as the society’s new Family Success Center.
The $1.5 million center will be a two-story, multipurpose facility that will offer education and enrichment classes as well as recreational opportunities for at-risk young people and their parents when it opens later this summer, the release noted.
