Shelter to open thrift store

By Steven Gnagni
Managing Editor

Next month, Siena House will open a new business on Ogden Avenue, the Siena House Inc. Thrift Shop. The store, which will be on the east side of Ogden between 165th and 166th Streets, will sell new to nearly new items, including clothing, furniture, and gift items.

“People give us a lot of donations, meaning furniture, household, clothing, baby items, but we absolutely have no storage space here,” says Sister Mary Doris, director of Siena House, who had the idea for the store. “Sometimes we get donations of older children’s clothing, or we get donations of items that our 27 women can’t store.”

Any profits from sales will help the women and programs of Siena House.

“There are a lot of situations that we need extra monies for here, like, for example, transportation for women who get closed public assistance cases or undocumented persons who don’t have medical coverage and they need prescriptions or whatever,” she says. “So we try to supplement stuff that the city doesn’t do for us.”

The store is possible thanks to a grant from the Blauvelt Dominican Sisters. “With that in hand, it seemed more doable,” says Sister Cecelia Byrnes, assistant director of Siena House.

An anonymous person also donated services to help make the store a reality. “We’ve had a whole lot of wonderful people that are coming out of the woodwork to help us,” Sister Mary Doris says.

The store will be open a few hours a day at first, and may eventually be a job training site for some of the residents of Siena House.

The Siena House thrift shop is not yet accepting donations, but will do so in the near future.