Lauderdale: Turning trash to treasure a leading Hilton Head industry
What's the best thing you ever got in a thrift store?
For me, it was a signed book of Charleston artist Elizabeth O'Neill Verner's sketches called "Other Places."
It was quite a thrill to see her signature in my $2 book.
Apparently, cheap thrills have become a leading attraction of the Lowcountry.
When the Bargain Box thrift store board met this week for a luncheon at Moss Creek, it distributed $430,000 to 42 nonprofits based in Beaufort County.
That represented its 2015 proceeds. Over the 50 years the shop has operated on Hilton Head Island, it has now given $13.9 million to charity.
That's a lot of $2 hardbacks. You've got to think that the three women who opened its doors in June 1965 -- Billie Hack, Irene Wilkens and Mary Alice Williamson -- would find that sum staggering.
But today, the Bargain Box is but one fish in a crowded sea.
Thrift shops have become one of the Lowcountry's leading industries.
A guidebook I found at The Church Mouse Thrift Shop on Hilton Head, a charitable ministry of St. Luke's Church, lists what must be most of the resale shops in our neck of the Lowcountry and the Savannah area. It totals 87.
Are we a bunch of hoarders?
The Church Mouse has turned such goodies as the vinyl Emmylou Harris album "Elite Hotel" into a quarter of a million dollars for charities in a single year. That mini bubble gum machine some donor no longer needed was transformed into hot meals for the homeless, hungry, unemployed and working poor at the Grateful Hearts Soup Kitchen on Hilton Head.
When I squeezed into a parking space between a Mercedes and BMW Thursday at the Bargain Box, I found volunteer Buck Edwards, whose wife asked him to help out temporarily eight years ago, hawking vacuum cleaners and golf clubs.
A millennial was stocking up on a sweet shirt and a Jimmie Johnson NASCAR water cooler that he surmised might work on other liquids as well. He said the best thing he ever got at a thrift store was a 2003 World Series Florida Marlins jersey.
A mother shopping with two daughters found Frye boots. A Louie Vuitton piece of luggage was going for $500, but supposedly retails for $4,800. A Nook reader with cover was $32.
But I found myself coveting the Elizabeth O'Neill Verner color print of a Charleston flower lady. It was marked down to $75.
"The most amazing part of the story is that this small thrift store has been making a difference in the lives of so many for 50 years," said Bargain Box volunteer and board member Lynne Lotz. "I did not know Billie Hack but truly feel that she has a strong presence here in the area and do think we continue to make her proud."
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This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Lauderdale: Turning trash to treasure a leading Hilton Head industry."