o Where: 7635 S.E. MacArthur Blvd.
o Telephone: 360-694-7263.
o On the Web: http://regiftingstore.org
A Heights-area thrift store is in need of exactly the sort of help it’s known for giving out.
Korry Holtzlander, creator of the dirt-cheap-or-free Regifting Store at 7635 S.E. MacArthur Blvd., seems to have run into the limits of charity. After operating since summer 2009 along a business model that prizes generosity over the bottom line — letting people pay what they can, even if it’s nothing at all, and doling out free cash assistance to the most desperate — the store, and Holtzlander himself, have been hit by a parade of opportunistic thieves.
First, he said, somebody smashed the window of his truck and grabbed the $650 cash deposit that was headed for the bank. Then, he said, somebody broke into the back of his store and took the safe — which contained a few bucks and a lot of change.
Then, the big one: Some homeless folks who help out at the store and stay at Holtzlander’s house, and were entrusted with taking $1,500 home and locking it away in a drawer as per routine, seem to have run off with the money.
Holtzlander had brief chats with police after these incidents but never filed any formal crime reports until other volunteer stores urged him to do so — and The Columbian started asking after the official complaint.
“I just want to turn the other cheek, like it says in the Bible,” he said. “Anybody who is stealing stuff is in trouble. I don’t figure I’ll ever be getting the money back, so, what’s the point?”
Holtzlander appears to have a heart of gold. What’s not certain is whether that heart, and some informal and trusting business practices, can sustain an operation that’s meant to sustain the poor.
“I guess I do blame myself for being overly trusting,” he concluded.
He said he’s hoping to get a break from his landlord for the month while he builds back his bottom line. And he’s hoping the community will come forward with donations of financial help and decent clothes, household goods and furniture.
Help and smiles
His property lease costs $6,000 per month, he said, and bills like insurance, electricity and trash pickup pull his total monthly expenses up to something like $7,200. The store has been pulling in about $10,000 per month, he said.
Isn’t that enough to keep a store that’s run entirely by volunteers afloat? Not if you’re also in the habit of fielding all sorts of cries for help — cutting checks for folks who can’t afford their own utilities and even handing out $10 or $20 bills to people who can’t make it to work without a gasoline top-up.
He said the Regifting Store gave away nearly $30,000 in assistance between July and December of last year.
“We have been pretty stable, but the community’s needs are just increasing and increasing,” said Holtzlander, who gained some fame when he started the store after leaving a lucrative career as a car-sales executive. He did that in 2006, when he discovered a homeless man sleeping in a car on his lot, and felt moved to employ the desperate fellow rather than bust him.
Since then, he’s cut an unusual swath across the charitable world: He formed a nonprofit corporation called Light of Man, ran himself ragged holding fundraisers and even bought a home to put up homeless people, and eventually opened his store after realizing, he said, just how awash the world is in resellable stuff.
The Regifting Store quickly became known as a place where the neediest can go for help of all sorts. It’s especially popular with social service agencies that are looking to provide their clients with the basics.
“I’ve got CPS (Child Protective Services) coming in,” he said. “I’ve got the state coming in, I’ve got Columbia River Mental Health, I’ve got Community Services Northwest coming in.”
He said some of these agencies grew concerned they were getting too easy a deal from Holtzlander — free stuff for their clients — so they started paying $25 per visit and still coming away with far more than that in goods and assistance.
“It’s like a Goodwill that does a whole lot more,” said Rae Lowery of Clearview Employment Services — a job-placement partner of Columbia River Mental Health — who’s brought many clients there. “If a person is looking for a job, they’ll let him go through the store and just pick out shoes and clothes for free. They’ll pay for haircuts.
“I’ve seen him pay for somebody’s cell phone, since you can’t get a job without a phone. I’ve seen him pay people’s rent. The guy is just amazing.”
But Lowery pointed out another new problem: Recent C-Tran budget cuts moved a bus line, which used to go right by the store, about one mile away. That means both customers and volunteers who are carless can’t get there so easily anymore.
“With the bus line’s being cut, with the store getting burglarized, I have no idea how he’s going to pay his rent,” Lowery said.
Lowery and her co-worker Mary Morris, another Regifting Store fan, have circulated an e-mail beseeching the community for store donations of money and quality items for resale.
“People are taking up collections at offices all over the city,” Lowery said.
“All the community outreach programs come to us,” said Dina Brill, a truck driver who’s been doing light duty here since November because she injured her back.
“This place is all about people helping people,” she said. “I was homeless for a while, and I know, sometimes you just need a smile and a hand. You need people not to judge you.”
Community project
Holtzlander said he is tired and demoralized. He’s had to start turning away people who come to him for help with the basics, he said, and that really hurts. His family has fractured over the stress. And it’s all because a few — very few — of the people he’s helped have taken advantage of him.
“The wind is completely out of my sails,” he said. “I have other things I want to do. I didn’t expect to be doing this forever. The truth of the matter is, I wanted to start this store and turn it over to the community.”
He describes something like a co-op, run by the folks it serves and anchored by skilled but presumably unemployed volunteers looking to build experience — a bookkeeper, for example, and a store manager.
“This store should be by the community, for the community,” he said.
Despite low spirits and cash losses, Holtzlander still doesn’t envision closing the place, he said, because the community’s needs are just too great. And a big grin spreads across his face when he relates what appears to be a typical human story he’s touched, and a silver lining to the burglary: One gentleman named Fred.
Not long after word about the thefts started spreading, a stumped Holtzlander started retrieving hand-written security reports that were slipped under the store’s front door overnight. They turned out to be from a new, self-appointed security guard named Fred who’s been watching the place.
“He told me, ‘I lost my job, so I thought I’d donate security,’” Holtzlander said. “I gave him a key. Sometimes he comes in and vacuums the place.”
Scott Hewitt: 360-735-4525 or scott.hewitt@columbian.com.
