ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 4, 1996 TAG: 9612040018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
New Goodwill and Sears stores have opened side by side in a former Food Lion store which had moved out of the Pulaski Plaza on East Main Street.
Other new businesses opening in Pulaski in recent weeks include Donna's Gift Shop, in quarters formerly occupied by a used bookstore on East Main, and D&B Garage, at Washington Avenue and Fifth Street. An Appliance Warehouse is also nearing an opening date.
Pulaski apparently won out over neighboring Wytheville for the new Sears store, which will be locally owned by Tom and Tonya McChesney.
For more than 20 years, Goodwill has had a store closer to the center of town at 45 E. Main St. Its new quarters in Pulaski Plaza on Virginia 99 cover 10,000 square feet, providing 10 times more space.
The old store had two employees, manager Vicki Morris - who is now assistant manager at the new store - and Lloyd Flinchum. Sandy Secrist will be the manager of the new store.
Goodwill now has 12 employees in the area, at the store and the donation centers.
"The donations from those buildings feed the store," explained Roger Matthews, executive director of Goodwill Industries Tinker Mountain Inc. in Salem. Other Goodwill stores are located in Salem, Roanoke and Galax.
Clothing and other items donated at those centers or the store's own drive-through donation center are cleaned, repaired, reconditioned or otherwise made ready to sell. That work is done by people with disabilities or other barriers to employment, after a training program.
More than 200 Roanoke Valley residents now work in that program. Profits from the Goodwill stores go into training and wages for those people.
"Anything that doesn't have quality or is soiled in any way, we toss," Matthews said. But even those materials are not wasted. They are separated as to type, and sent to other countries to be reprocessed as raw materials for other textiles from clothing to washcloths.
Occasionally an appliance which cannot be repaired may have to be junked, he said, "but most everything gets used." Even the appliances are dismantled for tubes or other parts that might no longer be available in regular stores but which some people might still want.
"But the whole purpose of this whole thing is to support Goodwill's mission, which is to help disabled people," he said. "This is a tremendous opportunity to offer to the people of Pulaski both a radical upgrade in Goodwill shopping as well as increased employment."
Matthews said the expanded display space in the new Pulaski store is important. "Everything of ours is one of a kind so, if it isn't out here, it doesn't sell."
Besides donated items, the store also has new merchandise from nationally known manufacturers of out-of-season articles of clothing.
Expanded hours at the new store will be from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 12 noon to 8 p.m. Sunday. Its telephone number remains 980-9790.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PAUL DELLINGER Staff. Patrons attend the grand openingby CNBof the new Goodwill store in Pulaski Plaza. color.