Heidi Klepper pushes through a row of clothes looking for simple sweaters.

“I need something plain because my jewelry is never plain,” she said.

The Anacortes resident, who makes her own jewelry, likes shopping at the Soroptimist Thrift Shop because she hates making the drive to Mount Vernon — and the bargains.

“I can buy two sweaters for seven bucks,” she said. “I just love the prices.”

Across the shop, Lopez Island resident Linda Koenig searches through a corner of ties offered for 75 cents. She uses them in aprons she makes for an island fundraiser.

“I use these great old ties with their great designs for the waist bands,” she said.

Koenig was carrying around other finds from her shopping spree — a pair of fruit and veggie pants to wear at the farmers market and an embroidery frame.

“I don’t come too often but it looks like an energetic crowd,” she said.

The thrift shop was bustling that recent afternoon as residents poked through racks of clothing, browsed stacks of books and perused shelves of kitchenware. About a dozen people stood in line to pay, their arms loaded with toys, games, clothes and shoes.

The thrift shop, run by the Soroptimist International Club of Anacortes, makes more than $200,000 a year for the organization. And most of that money is funneled back into the community through scholarships and other community donations.

The 79-member club is celebrating 60 years of service in Anacortes this month. Customers are invited to stop by the thrift shop at 1107 Third Street for cake, punch and coffee from noon to 4 p.m. Friday, June 13. The club is also hosting a 60-cent sale on Friday, June 20 to commemorate the anniversary.

What started as a small club with limited funding has grown into a large organization that in the past 10 years has contributed more than $750,000 to the community.

And it’s about to take another step forward.

The club will nearly double the thrift shop space with a planned $375,000 expansion later this year.

Plans are to add 3,840 square feet to the existing shop. The two-story addition will include offices and records upstairs and the home health equipment downstairs. The extra space will also let the club expand the shopping area.

They hope to start building in July.

Chartered in June 1948 with 23 members, the club’s first project was to start the Home Health Care Equipment Loan Program — which is still popular today.

“The original focus of the expansion was to make room for the hospital equipment,” said member Barbara Larson.

The program lets anyone with an Anacortes zip code borrow items from canes and crutches to hospital beds and wheelchairs for as long as needed. The club has more than 1,300 new and used items available for loan.

“We generally have what people need,” Larson said.

Debbie Exley, a physical therapist at Island Hospital Home Health, helps her clients get equipment through the program.

She said more than 50 percent of her clients take advantage of the free walkers, canes, bathroom equipment, wheelchairs and hospital beds.
“It is equipment that will prevent them from falling, make them safer in their homes and save people money,” Exley said. “They have a wonderful array of equipment in great condition. I feel so appreciative of this feature of our community.”

Employees of Home Health, which opened in January 1996, have been helping clients use the free rentals since its beginning.

Exley said Medicare doesn’t pay for bathroom equipment, like a raised toilet seat or handrails. And the bathroom is where many falls happen.

“All of that equipment would be purchased out of pocket,” she said.

Another of the club’s major service projects is a host of high school and college scholarships. The club recently awarded $44,000 to Anacortes residents.

“We have to keep making up new scholarships,” said member Leslie Dorn.

Pamela Daoust and her two daughters, Chelsea and Kaetlynn, have all been awarded scholarships from the organization.

“The effect for us has not just been monetary. It’s not just a monetary lift, it’s knowing someone cared enough to believe in you and send you on your way.”

Daoust, who works as a paraeducator with special needs students at Island View Elementary School, sends occasional letters to the members to update them on the family.

Chelsea graduated in December from the University of Hawaii with a degree in kinesiology, the science of human movement, and Kaetlynn just completed her first year at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Broadcast Journalism.

“Every person in that club wants to know how you’re doing. Long after that check is turned over they don’t stop checking in,” she said.

The funding helped Daoust take the necessary classes to become a child life specialist.

“They have such a wide scope of what they do for the community,” she said. “They’re proactive and they want to make a difference. And they do make a difference.”

The Soroptimist Thrift Shop, open Tuesdays and Fridays, is what supports the club’s giving.

The shop drop-off area looks like an organized mess. Boxes of knickknacks sit near piles of books and carts of clothing, all ready to be priced.
Club members are busy on days when the shop is open. Throughout the day, people drop off items for members to sort and price while others are roaming the shop.

Kuehn often volunteers in the unloading zone where she “triages” the items, putting them in piles for pricing.

“We have a good time out here,” she said. “We get first look at all the things that come through.”

“Most of us dress from here,” Larson added. Inside, the members’ closet has items they come across and just can’t pass up buying for themselves.
The club hosts an annual prom dress sale, which last year included a Vera Wang dress.

“A lot of the girls that are going are gorgeously attired from our store,” Larson said.

The club doesn’t sell everything that is donated.

“We have very high standards,” Larson said.

Clothing that can’t be sold is donated to SEAMAR, a counseling and social services group in Mount Vernon.

One of the club’s “Soropti-misters,” John Tursi, comes in a couple times a week to help price. Tursi’s late wife Doris was one of the three members who got the thrift shop up and running.

“We bought the first building for them,” Tursi said.

The couple put up the $2,500 for the first shop and were later reimbursed by the club. It opened Dec. 13, 1966.

“It was a lot of work,” he said. “At first we sold to the members. We ended up buying it back.”

But it developed into a great thing for the club.

One of the few men who help the club, Tursi has a long relationship with the members.

“There are many women here I’ve known since we were teenagers going to dances,” he said. “This gives me something to get up for and stay in contact with people.”

The club is always looking for new members.

“Soroptimist International has made it a high priority to get new members,” Larson said. “All you have to be is a woman.”

Membership requirements have loosened over the years. In the past, Dorn said members had to be the owner or manager of a company, had to be asked to join and were required to work a certain number of hours each week.

“It was really stringent,” she said.

Members still must work in the thrift shop and attend weekly meetings, but it is more relaxed.

The club’s membership is what enabled them to even think about expanding the thrift shop.

“There’s been excellent leadership and pretty savvy business leaders in the club,” Larson said.

The club owns the building and land as well as property adjacent to the thrift shop. And it has been saving funds for the expansion.

Besides plans for the thrift shop expansion, Larson said the club will just keep doing what they have for the past 60 years.

“We’re not resting on our laurels, but what we’re aiming for is more of the same,” she said.




Club gives $765,000 in 10 years
Over the past 10 years (1998-2008) the Soroptimist International of Anacortes has given about $765,000 to community service and scholarships.

Since 1998, it has given about $225,800 in scholarships to local students and about $540,000 in community service funds.

Some of the local organizations and endeavors the club has contributed to over the years include: Anacortes/San Juan Islands chapter of the American Red Cross — Amerman fund, disaster relief, utility fund; Anacortes 100 Food Bank; Anacortes Community Forest Lands; Anacortes Community Health Council; Anacortes Community Theatre; Anacortes Jazz Festival; Anacortes High School Key Club; Anacortes Little League; Anacortes Public Library; Anacortes School District; Boys and Girls Club; Daddy/Daughter Dance; Displaced Homemakers; Eagles Thanksgiving dinner; Friendship House; Hawkeye wrestlers; Island Hospital Foundation; Island Hospital — Lifeline program, prenatal center; Kids R Best Fest; Meals on Wheels; National Alliance on Mental Illness of Skagit County; Oasis Teen Shelter; Our Town, Our Park; Meals on Wheels; Reading is Fundamental; Salvation Army — Christmas fund, food bank, utility fund; Skagit Adult Day Care; Skagit Hospice uncompensated care fund; Skagit Preschool and Resource Center; St. Vincent de Paul utility fund; and Wrestlers for Life.

Soroptimist of Anacortes history
Soroptimist International of Anacortes was chartered by the Metropolitan Club of Seattle in June 1948 with 23 members. Members were business women representing just about every type of industry in Anacortes.

The club’s first project was to start a hospital equipment for loan program. The first piece of equipment purchased was a bed.

Club members raised money in a variety of ways — style shows, bake sales, musical programs, rummage sales and dinners.

In 1966, Thelma Marani, Nina Antonious and Doris Tursi decided to ask the club to consider opening a thrift shop.

Doris Tursi, a lifetime member of the club who died several years ago, fondly remembered the early days of the thrift shop in the group’s online history.

“It took some persuasion to convince the club that it was a good idea,” she said. “We had to personally guarantee that the club would not go in debt and we never did. We didn’t make much at first, but we always managed to make expenses, which were $25 plus a few dollars in winter for Presto Logs.”

The first Soroptimist Thrift Shop opened Dec. 13, 1966, at a house at 31st Street and Commercial Avenue. It was called the Bargain Bungalow.

In 1972, the house was put up for sale and the shop had to move. Doris and John Tursi bought the old Salvation Army building at Fourth Street and O Avenue in December 1972 for $2,500. They were later reimbursed by the club.

The Soroptimist Thrift Shop, its new name, opened in March 1973.

By the late 1990s the shop began to burst at the seams. The club ended up buying the Anacortes Public Library’s old children’s wing for $1 (the club donated $15,000 when it was originally built) and moved it to the shop’s current location at 1107 Third St.

A grand opened was May 3, 2002. During the first day in business the club made more than $3,000.

— Information compiled from the Soroptimist International of Anacortes Web site, http://soroptimistanacortes.org.

Soroptimist Thrift Shop basics
Location — 1107 Third St.

Store hours — 1:30-8 p.m. Tuesdays and noon to 9 p.m. Fridays.

Donation hours — 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays.

What to donate — Clean clothing that is in good shape, records, CDs, tapes, material and sewing notions, craft material, small household appliances (like mixers, blenders, radios, tape players and toasters), shoes and boots, purses and backpacks, toys, roller blades, skateboards, dishes, silverware, cutlery, pots and pans, books, coloring books, pens, pencils and crayons, bed linens, clean pillows, all kinds of household linens, throw pillows, jars and pictures.