Park Avenue Thrift

 

Park Avenue Thrift is the dba of the 501(c)(3) non-profit Oklahoma corporation, Our Father’s Business, Inc., an outreach of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. We appreciate your care for this innovative ministry.

Park Avenue Thrift celebrated three years of serving the Enid Community on October 1, 2010. Through good old-fashioned elbow grease, the generosity of the community and mainly a LOT of blessing from Almighty God, Park Avenue Thrift’s support of the Quality of Life in Enid, Oklahoma is poised to pass $300,000!

The mission of Park Avenue Thrift can be found in the Summary of the Law: Love God and Love Your Neighbor. We are here to:
glorify God through the Episcopal Church in this area and  give away 100% of the profits to community endeavors.

The Episcopal Church is a perfect example of Community and St. Matthew’s in Enid is no exception. Here is where we laugh and cry, here is where we celebrate and mourn, here is where we worship and serve. Drawing on the blessing of Community, Park Avenue Thrift reaches out to organizations in our community who make Enid a truly grand place to live. We believe that “Any time you help the Community, you do a Sacred Thing.”

The total given away by Park Avenue Thrift as of December 31, 2010, is $297,956.50.
These are the recipients:
The Enid Symphony Orchestra: cultural ambassador to the entire region,
and longest running symphony in the state of Oklahoma
Gaslight Theatre: entertaining Enid for over 40 years
Leonardo’s Discovery Warehouse: inspiring children of all ages
Main Street Enid: making downtown Enid a destination for shopping, dining and entertainment
PEGASYS: a premier public access television station serving public,
educational and governmental entities
We call these organizations The Big Five. The bulk of our giving is focused here.
The Enid community is even broader than these fine organizations; we also gave to:
4R Kids Great American Land Run
Be Fit Kids Habitat for Humanity
CDSA Junior Welfare League
Chamber of Commerce Southern Heights Community Museum
Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center Turkey Trot
Enid Public Library United Way
Enid SPCA Vance AFB Projects

We gave awards to school teachers who entered our art contests. Margaret Moss is the Curator of our Emerging Artists Gallery and does a wonderful job promoting art in education. Until very recently, Mim helped her a lot with the displays.

Donations are also directed toward the disadvantaged in the form of “free merchandise” made available to clients of a number of helping agencies in our community. These benevolence vouchers are used by:
American Red Cross Juvenile Detention Center
ARK: Acts of Random Kindness Macedonia Missions
Catholic Charities Our Daily Bread
Department of Human Services St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church
Drug Court St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
Enid Public Schools World Harvest Church
First United Methodist Church Youth and Family Services
Health Department YWCA
Zoe Bible Church
Toys for Tots with money for Christmas gifts, gave some memorial gifts and did some benevolence work with some of our employees.

This Christmas we saw an article in the Enid News about the number of homeless children in our public schools. Regardless of the circumstances, every child should have a warm bed. The story provided the spark and we were able to purchase 86 child sized sleeping bags and deliver them to the Elementary Schools on the day before Christmas Holidays. The counselors were overjoyed to be able to give a warm bed to those kids that they know are in need.

We were blessed to be able to help St. Matthew’s with some needs over the year in addition to our monthly pledge.
So you can see that truly Park Avenue Thrift is helping the Whole Community!

We have Morning Prayer in our Chapel at Park Avenue Thrift on most Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:00. Judi Mackey and Ray are regular attendees, as well as Lissa Qualls and Joanna Samples. Some of our employees join us. There is a book in the “Narthex” where customers can record their prayer requests and we are humbled to be able to bring them before God on their behalf. There were 77 services of Morning Prayer in 2010.

In August of 2009, St. Matthew’s used some of their savings to help Park Avenue Thrift purchase the old Palecek Round Top directly across the alley from our store. The promissory note will be paid off in August of this year. This transaction has been a blessing on both sides. Park Avenue Thrift has paid $2,713.35 in interest instead of $243 that would have been earned through the current market.

We were able to move our processing department out of the main building and free up space for more merchandise on the sales floor. Sales are still increasing steadily and we anticipate a record year in 2011. We had 82,899 customers in 2010, an average of 271 per day. We sold 457,179 items! We average 39 drop-offs a day at the back door. We employ 25 people! We are open Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Folks donating good used stuff, especially furniture and appliances, is what makes all this work. When asked what we take, we always answer, “Anything except live animals and small children.” God bless each of you who have prayed, donated and encouraged and even those few who have cursed and challenged. We can’t get to the Via Media any other way. Please know you are always welcome. We would love to give you “the nickel tour!”

Respectfully submitted,

Paula Nightengale and David Hume
Co-Directors, Park Avenue Thrift