Seventeen years ago, Penelope M. Thumith agreed to manage the St. Andrews Hospital Thrift Shop.

Penny, as she likes to be called, says it was a way to take her mind off the trauma triggered by the death of her beloved husband, Ken.

“I was waiting for my life to take some direction,” she said. Then she just got tired of waiting and got to work. and work she did.

“I would come into the old thrift shop and scrub the linoleum floor just to get out of the house,” she said.

It was the beginning of a career quarterbacking a remarkable community asset that provides customers with high quality, low-cost clothing and household goods, raises thousands of dollars for healthcare causes, and gives the 85 mostly women volunteers a shared sense of purpose.

And, she did it with a smile and a ready laugh.

Last week, Penny sat down at a well-used card table in the shop, located in the Meadow Mall, and admitted she had no idea how to run a business.

“I was just a stay-at-home mom with a husband and two children.” In addition to her mom duties, she kept the family finances in order. “Ken would give me his paycheck every week and I would put it in the bank and pay the bills.” 
While she says she was “just” a stay-at-home mom, like the millions of others in the same position, she was not “just” anything.

Running a family is a small business. She had to budget her time, multi-task, mediate disputes, keep house, feed the family, manage the finances and a hundred other chores, and, she did it with a smile and a gentle laugh.

Those skills gave her a base of knowledge to rely upon when she agreed to become what she calls “the mother superior” of the community department store some call “Chez Thrift.”

Beginning in a tiny room off a dark corridor in the mall, she and her helpers collected the cast-off clothing and household goods and resold them. With consistent annual growth, she moved the operation into a larger space vacated by a drug store, and, fueled by donations, the operation just took off.

Today, the sales racks sport a stunning white wedding dress featuring intricate beadwork. The price tag says $50. “It would cost thousands in a retail store,” she said.

Shelves hold sets of dishes that would cost hundreds in a specialty shop. You can have a place setting for eight or 12 for $25. “People bring the dishes and silver to us. They say their children don’t want to bother with grandma’s gold-rimmed china. You can’t put them in the dishwasher,” she said.

In the men’s department, fine suits and sports coats can be had for $20 or less. Want a fur coat, Penny will sell you one, but there is not much call for fine furs anymore. “I brought my silver fox jacket in, but no one bought it, so I took it back home,” she said.

Other treasures that found their way into Penny’s domain were expensive jewels that went to auction and artworks sold at a nearby retail art store.

The store has no paid employees and pays nothing for the merchandise. Everything is donated. The only expenses are rent and overhead. That is why she proudly admits to bringing in a profit of about $130,000 year. And that sum goes right out.

“Every year, St. Andrews Hospital, now Lincoln Health, brings us a wish list of items they would like to have, but can’t afford. We pick the items we want to fund.”

The shop also donates to the local ambulance service, the Life Flight helicopter ambulance, the district nurse, and the Tufts Maine Track Medical School program that exposes med students to clinical training in the state.

In addition, the shop provides clothing and household items to needy families by working with the community navigator, churches, and schools.

And, they fund $20,000 in scholarships for future healthcare workers.

After 17 years, Penny is stepping down. She is thrilled that Carole McCarthy agreed to take her place. “She will make a great new mother superior,” laughs Penny.

People love the Thrift Shop, but there are critics, too.

Some folks claim the 85 volunteer workers just volunteer so they get “first pick” of the donated merchandise.

Penny answers with a grin. “I always tell these critics that they can have “the first pick,” too. All they have to do is become a volunteer and help out,” she said.

But the new volunteers quickly find out they have to pay the same price as the general public pays. There are no employee discounts at Boothbay Harbor’s “House of Thrift.”