East End Community Thrift Joins Team GA/GI

A project of the Thomas Merton Center, East End Community Thrift @ 5123 Penn, with it nice refurbished facade, is a natural for GA/GI Fest for their used clothing, and furniture and their annual recycling and redistribution of thousands of books, glassware, fabric, shoes, art and other household items.Normally closed for the evenings, Team GA/GI asked Thrift to open for Unblurred a few years back, and according to staff, if definitely helped increase business, by introducing them to a whole new audience of people, and allowing for folks working during the day to buy during evening hours when the store is normally closed. EECT takes the opportunity to open in the spring with the GA/GI event then stays open most Unblurred First Fridays until the weather gets cold

The all-volunteer store has served the Garfield community for 20 years offering low cost options to budget-minded families.The thrift store is a regular distributor of free bread, donated by Whole Foods. They sell along with their clothing,  ready-to-plant herbs, and also free-range eggs donated by local urban chicken farmer, Kay Barchetti, who works for Coldwell Banker. Barchetti's nearby urban eco environment hosts over 40 breeds of chickens. We witnessed an arrival of fresh eggs on our visit, and were reminded that REAL eggs come in a variety of colors. The entire cluster hearkened back to the days when seeing clothing and produced side by side was expected. Don't know what will be available for sell during GA/GI, but we think the partnership of fashion and fowl is eggsceptional. "Like" them on Facebook.