The Thrift Store and Community Storehouse

Since 2005 we have done this a bunch of different ways! From 2005-2006 we had a room in Doug's furniture store, Built To Last Home.com, where people could just take whatever they wanted - and leave stuff. Then we got the townhouses (transitional housing) and we had the basement in one full of clothes and furniture for anybody that needed it. Then we had the garage in another full of food - and took food out with the van all over town to places where we knew there were needs. About 2010 we opened the "Free Store" on Kent Street in Liberty (by Sutherland's) where people could just put whatever they wanted in the jar at the front desk. But that was weird because people don't seem to value "free." So we priced it all $0.25 and they were thrilled with what a great deal they were getting! Around 2011 that closed and we moved to the Garrison Center where we had much more room for the pantry and we had a classroom upstairs for all the clothes that were just free for the taking.

In 2013 the Kansas City Star wrote a nasty hit piece calling us a "cult" and the very same day the board of the Garrison Center voted to evict us with 30 days notice and no opportunity to defend ourselves. (Almost immediately after that a water main broke and the it cost the board members a lot of money out of their own pockets to fix it. God isn't mocked.)

So we rented space in the Rush Creek Caves, hoping it could be a home for the thrift store and food pantry, but it was zoned industrial, not retail, so we couldn't have foot traffic there. Turns out we needed it though as we got contracts to process scrap metal for four Savers stores, 23 Goodwill stores, three Hillcrest Ministries stores, plus our own new store in the industrial park across from the Odd Fellows Home. That location worked OK for our thrift and pantry and excess inventory, disaster relief supplies and the scrap metal operation worked out of the cave. We processed about one semi trailer per day of metal and created jobs for 8-10 of the men and women staying in our transitional housing.

In 2015 we had a small fire in one of our townhouses and we felt God telling us to start looking for a farm. We had heard from God way back since 2007 that eventually we would have a farm and a cave. We thought the cave space we were renting was the fulfillment of at least part of that. Little did we know that God would lead us to a 67.7 acre farm WITH a 20 acre cave underneath, just outside of Excelsior Springs! We made a deal for him to owner finance it on a Lease for contract with a five year balloon. We took possession June 1, 2015 and shut down the cave and thrift store and moved everything to Excelsior Springs. Two weeks before the balloon came due, owing $240,000 and nothing much in the bank, after a year of trying different options, God was true to His word that He would pay for it - and a brother stepped up out of the blue, bought the 27.7 acres in the back and financed the remainder of the front for us.

During those years we got busy with the farm and put the thrift store on hold. Until in the summer of 2021 ... while businesses were closing all over the nation, God told us to start looking for a new thrift store and gave us a vision for a "Community Storehouse." (The farm wouldn't work because it's zoned wrong for some of the things we want to do.) We looked at several spaces and got a great offer on the space at 115 Crown Hill Rd., #7. It's next to Orscheln Farm and Home (now Tractor Supply) in a strip mall right on the main commercial road through Excelsior Springs. Originally it was 3,600 square feet that used to be a thrift store, but it was connected to a warehouse in the back that brought it up closer to 13,000 square feet and he wanted to rent us the whole thing. We're a small non-profit, always running on empty with a budget of about $100,000 per year. This would add about 35% more to that! So we prayed and God said, "Don't worry. I'll pay for it." And we know how to hear Him, how to make sure it's Him - and He's been paying our bills for 15 years, so we we swallowed hard and told the landlord to write it up, that'd we'd do it.

TWO HOURS LATER we got an email from a logistics company in Lenexa wanting to give away over 600 pallets of paper towels and toilet paper. Later it turns into a LOT more then that: hand soap, sanitizer, disinfectant, aprons, goggles, masks, gloves, spray bottles and more! And when we finally finish trucking it all from Lenexa to Excelsior Springs it was over 900 pallets (35 semi trailer loads!). Proving again that you can't build barns faster then God can fill them! It cost us $20,000 of truck rental, gas, pallet racking and forklift just to RECEIVE the gift. The tax donation receipt that they got was for over $3,000,000!

So that's the really long version, but we have a really neat store, with things priced really cheap, trying to churn stuff out to whoever needs it in the community. We have free food out front every day and a "free sale" sidewalk sale at least once a month. Recently we've started adding deep discount near-date groceries to help folks fight inflation. We're calling it CitySaver Thrift because we want it to help promote CitySaver.org, our new internet effort to bring people together, including bringing the Christians together in cities all over the world. Please visit the store site at www.citysaverthrift.org or our free community building site at www.citysaver.org .

Come see!!

The hours (currently) are:

You can drop off donations any time during business hours or call if you need us to pick them up (in the Northland area).