Triangle thrift shop needs $100K to keep doors open. Could a buyer save CommunityWorx?
Update: On Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024, an Orange County judge set the property’s sale for Dec. 5. CommunityWorx can keep raising money until then to close the deal with an interested buyer.
A 72-year-old community thrift shop has a buyer ready to step in and help it avoid foreclosure and stay in business, but first it needs to raise $100,000 to help close the deal, officials said.
CommunityWorx, at 125 W. Main St. in Carrboro, posted an update about the possible deal Thursday afternoon on its Facebook page. In it, the nonprofit’s board of directors Chair Kevin Hicks asked supporters to make donations.
“CommunityWorx has always stood by and been there for you — from workforce development programs to offering a second home for your lightly used cherished goods,” he wrote. “Now, we need you to stand by us.”
The money will serve as security for the real estate closing, said Barbara Jessie-Black, president and CEO of the nonprofit organization. The sale could be finalized in the next two weeks, ahead of an Oct. 8 foreclosure hearing at the Orange County Courthouse.
The new owner is a local nonprofit partner that will be announced later, she said, calling the deal a “the best-case scenario” that will not change anything about current operations. Nonprofit groups will continue to occupy out of YouthWorx on Main next door and the thrift shop’s 7,330-square-foot, third-floor office space.
“We’re too vital to the community, not just from a place where people drop off and shop, but also the 25 nonprofit partners that we work with and support in some way,” Jessie-Black said. “They’re all affected by our inability to operate, so first and foremost, that’s kind of where we want to make sure we have what we need and that we can continue to operate.”
That includes the thrift shop’s mission of providing employment and a stable life to “under-resourced and members of marginalized populations,” including people who are in addiction recovery or affected by the criminal justice system, she added.
Financial woes follow expansion, COVID
CommunityWorx — formerly the PTA Thrift Shop — opened in 1952 as a local nonprofit selling second-hand goods to support the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. In 2012, the thrift shop launched a campaign to build a new store and an office building next door.
But a rift soon developed with the local PTAs when most of the money that previously supported the schools was funneled instead into the $5.5 million expansion. In 2019, the thrift shop was forced to change its name to CommunityWorx after a short legal battle.
Court documents show CommunityWorx defaulted on one loan in January 2020 and defaulted on the other in February 2020. In March 2020, the global pandemic forced the thrift shop and a second location in Chapel Hill to close for six months, causing “a significant loss of revenue,” Jessie-Black has said. The Chapel Hill location never reopened.
CommunityWorx defaulted again on both loans when it did not repay the full amount by May 2023, court records show. The bank gave the nonprofit until November 2023 to pay the debt or sell the property.
The thrift shop and the office building next door were listed for sale in December at $4.7 million. The bank notified CommunityWorx about the foreclosure in June.
CEO says groups thriving, no regrets
Available tax returns showed CommunityWorx only made a profit in four of the last 11 years, ending 2023 with a total loss of $425,472. The nonprofit still owed almost $4.3 million in mortgage payments and fees as of June 20, court documents show.
Jessie-Black said she has no regrets about the decisions that were made, because she and the board made the best choices possible based on the information they had at any given time.
The thrift shop and the nonprofit groups that it supports are thriving, despite the “bump in the road” of possible foreclosure, she said, and their mission is even more clear following the pandemic’s detrimental effects on some members of the community.
“I don’t have an ego attached to what’s happening here in the organization. My whole focus for being here over the last 20 years has been mission and organization focused,” she said. “I don’t look at this as Barbara’s organization. For me, it’s what’s in the best interest of the organization and the people that are in it and the people that are benefiting from the programming.”
This story was originally published September 20, 2024 at 1:43 PM.
