CAMANO ISLAND — Behind Second Chance Thrift Shop, volunteers search for space to store donated clothes, dishes, decorations and toys among items already piled high under portable canopies.
The makeshift back room is crowded. Some days, volunteers turn away donations because there isn’t space.
The Camano Senior Services Association is launching a $525,000 fundraising campaign to build a new 4,000-square-foot store next to the existing building off Highway 532. The goal is to increase sales at the shop, which provides 42 percent of the budget for the island’s nonprofit senior and community center.
The center is the hub of senior services on the island. People gather three days a week for lunch and Meals on Wheels delivers more than 5,000 dishes a year to people who can’t get there. The classrooms are used most days for activities: painting, gardening, cooking, tai chi and book clubs. People can borrow walkers, wheelchairs and crutches, and staff can connect visitors with other services. The center hosts the only daycare in the area for adults with disabilities so caregivers can get some free time, program coordinator Jessie Walker said.
Walker also helps at the thrift shop. Having places where people can volunteer or get care is vital for the island, she said.
“It’s the domino effect,” she said. “It doesn’t just affect one person.”
The center’s annual budget is about $750,000, director Karla Jacks said. It comes from donations, event rentals, membership fees and thrift shop sales. In past years, money from Island County made up about 4 percent of the budget. That ended this year.
The association aims to increase sales so the thrift shop covers 52 percent of the center’s expenses rather than 42 percent. Planning started three years ago, and preliminary designs would double the store’s size.
“We’re really quite desperate for more space here,” manager Roxanne Robertson-Moore said.
Second Chance has been in the same building for 20 years. The portable “back room” is a fairly new addition. The Christmas barn — a beige storage shed — fills up by April. The furniture barn is a maze of tables, chairs and dressers.
“I think we help people move things they don’t need into the hands of people who need them,” Robertson-Moore said. “For people out here, there really isn’t a lot. You’d have to go to Smokey Point or Mount Vernon for some of these things.”
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
Learn more
The Camano Senior Services Association has about 1,600 members. Anyone can use the center, but only members get voting rights when it comes to planning. Membership is $30 a year, $50 for a family.
To become a member or donate, go to www.camanocenter.org/ways-to-give, or call the center at 360-387-0222.
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