BY KEITH LIPPOLDT

klippoldt@gbtribune.com

2025 marks the 60th year Catholic Charities has been in southwest Kansas. And for the first time in those 60 years, they were looking at having to shut down within a couple of months because of the funding freeze instituted by the government. 

The Director of Communications and Development for Catholic Charities of Southwest Kansas Rebecca Ford knew something needed to be done to keep the program alive and well.

“Some of our government grant-based programs are reimbursement based. The government contracts with us to provide the services,” Ford explained. “We provide the services and documentation. They look at the documentation and make sure that it qualifies, and then they reimburse us. So sometimes that reimbursement is a couple months behind, and so when they froze them, we were sitting there holding $600,000 to $700,000 in unreimbursed expenses that we couldn’t absorb. 

“All of our offices (one in Great Bend, two in Garden City, one in Dodge City, one in Liberal) were cutting any unnecessary subscriptions, trying to figure out what all we could do to help reduce our expenses. You know, it was kind of a drop in a bucket compared to what we were going to need.”

Knowing that people across the western half of the state were dependent on their services, they put their heads together to come up with new ways to raise money. The Great Bend staff decided a garage sale would help and the public overwhelmed them with donated items to sell.

“We had the garage sale in April at our office,” Ford said. “We turned our entire office into a garage sale. Every single room was packed. It was all donated items. People were very generous and gave us great things, which we’re really grateful for. As we were working to transform that office space into that, we thought, ‘why don’t we try to see what we can do with a thrift shop.’ 

“We’ve toyed with that idea in the past. Kansas City Catholic Charities makes a significant amount of money from their thrift shop that supports many of their programs. Our sister agencies in Salina and Hays have a Catholic Charities thrift shop. Hays just opened a few months ago. Again, it’s a significant source of revenue for helping those people in need. And I was like, let’s try it, and our director, Debbie Snapp, gave me the green light to run with this.”

Snapp, who’s been the Catholic Charities executive director for 30-plus years, was on board 100% to pursue a thrift store opportunity and gave Ford the go-ahead to find a building that would work for them. Ford talked to the landlord of their office building, Tony Muth, and he said he had a space that could work well for them as a store.

“We reached out to him,” she said. “I said, ‘this is our plan. This is what we’re looking for.’ And he didn’t even hesitate. He said ‘Yes.’ Debbie came over to look at it. We looked at the space, kind of made some agreements of how we could make this work. So that was the impetus. How can we keep going? How can we change our revenue stream? Now, our situation doesn’t look as dire as it did in January and February. Some of those funds have trickled in. There’s some that hasn’t. We still know that there’s murky waters ahead. As far as our funding – SNAP is taking a hit. Medicaid, for our folks who don’t have a lot of resources, is taking a hit. LEAP for energy assistance, all of those things are getting hit and most of our funding is government grant based. So it’s like this is an opportunity for us to shift some of that stream to something that’s more self sufficient so that we can continue to help people who are in need in our area.”

The building, located at 2410 Main St. in Great Bend, has been secured for the Catholic Charities Golden Harvest Thrift Store and donations are steadily coming in. Ford and her staff of volunteers are working to get the merchandise set up and displayed like a department store, knowing that the sales will help those in need.

“The idea is that this will provide funding for our local community area,” she said. “These funds stay local. We are going to provide low cost goods – quality goods for people, and this will help our revenue turn around. Besides paying for our overhead, this store will help us provide rent and utilities, and housing expenses and things like that. 

“We have gotten an increase in phone calls for assistance. They’re not our regulars. They’ve not had to look for assistance before. We’re hearing that uptick a little bit. So this is going to just help us continue to do what our mission is – to help people in need and give us resources to do that. Our vision here is to make this a dignified shopping experience. You can come here and expect to find good items. We’re not doing junk. These will be good items at a fair price. We are a thrift store, not a museum. We need to move the merchandise.”

Catholic Charities Golden Harvest Thrift Store

The store will be staffed by a group of volunteers that will know the merchandise and will be able to assist shoppers in finding items in the store. The hours will be 9 a.m. to 4;30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and Saturdays, 9 a.m to noon. The store will be merchandised through donated items and will offer a loyalty program and gift cards.

Catholic Charities Golden Harvest Thrift Store will host an open house on Saturday, August 2 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be opening remarks shortly before noon with a blessing of the store by Fr. Robert Schremmer at noon. The store will provide a free lunch, door prizes and live music by Bent Wheat.

“We have stuff planned almost all day,” Ford said. “It will be a festive kind of day. It will be a great day to come and see what’s here.”