Supporting Local Students through the Thrill of the Hunt!
Communities In Schools of Brunswick County (CIS) has been providing dropout prevention programs for students attending Brunswick County Schools for the past thirty years. CIS provides support to students who need extra help to stay in school and be successful by providing academic tutoring, mentoring, life skill lessons, behavior and truancy interventions, and providing for student’s basic needs. Being able to support this work with over 500 students annually takes trained, dedicated staff and the financial backing to both build and sustain programming.
Since 2009, CIS has operated thrift shops to help generate revenue to support our programming. Starting with shops in Southport and Sunset Beach and then adding one in Boiling Spring Lakes in 2010, and most recently in Shallotte in 2024, the shops play a vital role in ensuring students have consistent access to CIS programs.
Thrift shopping has always been a popular activity here in Brunswick County and across the US as well. Aside from the practical benefits of saving money and still acquiring needed, high quality, gently used or new items to help stretch the budget, many enjoy thrifting due to “the thrill of the hunt”. CIS sees that play out at our four shops daily.
CIS has outfitted brides-to-be, prom goers, provided suits for interviews, dresses for special dates, serving dishes and place settings to impress those coming for Christmas dinner, and helped shoppers brighter their own or someone else’s day by finding an unexpected item that makes them smile but doesn’t break the bank.
Many customers are regular donors and shoppers and find the camaraderie of shopping with CIS to be fulfilling as well. Likewise, CIS staff enjoy getting to know their customers and the types of items they routinely look for so they can highlight new merchandise to them when they come into the shop.
Volunteering in the shops is a great way for community members to build community, foster new connections with others who also enjoy volunteering, and keep them active and engaged if they are retired or live alone. CIS counts on the many dedicated hours their generous volunteers willingly devote to ensure shoppers and donors have a positive experience and return to CIS time and time again.
As the cost of operating the shops continues to rise due to rent, utility, equipment, and insurance costs increases, the creative and inspired CIS staff continue to look for ways to provide the highest quality products and service to their valued customers and ensure the shops can continue generating the revenue needed to support CIS’ student-focused mission. They not only supervise their staff and volunteers, but they oversee the shop sales floor displays, shop safety and maintenance, donations, and social media and other outreach to help keep CIS thrift shops at top of mind for thrifters and donors alike.
All these efforts combine to help shoppers enjoy the “thrill of the hunt”. The shops receive donations of clothing and household items each week, but they also receive special or unexpected items that stand out and generate excitement among shoppers. That piece of heirloom jewelry, a handmade piece of pottery, a signed piece of art, high end clothing items with the tags still intact, or a designer purse. Watching shoppers find these on the sales floor and being able to share their joy and sense of conquest with them is what makes thrift shops so much fun!
While CIS strives to identify those higher-end items when they are received and price them to reflect a deep discount but still a higher price than standard thrift items, there are always those times when the customer truly scores that once in a lifetime find! Memorable is a gentleman who came to the register one day and shared that he loves shopping with CIS. He then explained that a few months prior he had been in the store and spied a cowboy hat that was very gently used. He bought it and the more he looked it over the more curious he became about its history and origin. A bit of research led him to discover it was custom crafted by the same artisan in Texas that custom makes cowboy hats for the Bush family, including former President Bush. He was able to find that the specific hat he bought in the CIS shop for twenty dollars was valued at almost two thousand dollars! The shop’s loss was his gain in this case, but it was a story he and the CIS staff will not soon forget!
CIS continues to be ever-present in its four locations – Southport, Boiling Spring Lakes, Shallotte, and Sunset Beach – to welcome the community to join the ‘thrill of the hunt’ in its shops each week Monday through Saturday from 10 AM to 5 PM. Their staff look forward to continuing to build strong connections with the community by providing opportunities to donate, shop, volunteer and, yes, to find that next amazing bargain you didn’t know you needed!
