York County Humane Society Christmas store’s new location helps raise record money
On a recent day, Paula Sparks was restocking stockings while Cindy Runyan walked up and down an aisle full of Christmas ornaments. Their jobs as volunteers for the PAWSibilties Christmas Store, located on Main Street in Fort Mill, is a particularly busy one this year.
This year, partly because of its central location in downtown, the Humane Society of York County is set to bring in about $145,000 through its thrift store. That’s $26,000 more than in 2022, store manager and “chief elf” Elaine Siegel said.
“The money is used for our homeless kitties and puppies at the shelter and it’s used for medical care and food and whatever is needed for those poor little animals until they go to their forever homes,” she said. “It’s a lot of money for the animals.”
This is the 14th year for the Humane Society’s thrift store, but every year it has to look for a new location, Siegel said. The advantage is there isn’t overhead because the locations are donated.
Space in an empty furniture store
This year, the Humane Society lucked out when they were able to move into the empty Kimbrell’s Furniture Store, which has 7,000 square feet of space. It opened for the season Oct. 1 and sold Halloween decor before making the switch to holiday wares.
“The location has been phenomenal — one of our best,” Siegel said. “Depending on what kind of space we get next year, it may not be as big as this, but do we the best we can.”
This is Runyan’s eighth year volunteering at the Christmas store.
She said everyone at the shelter cares.
“It has always occurred to me as I started volunteering, that everyone that is a volunteer just truly cares about what we’re doing, even down to how we set the product up,” she said. “It’s just neatly done … no shortcuts. It’s just that everyone cares about the animals totally.”
Donations and volunteers
The store, which first opened in 2009, has about 60 volunteers and is open seven days a week. There are no paid employees.
And donations have increased this year because the store is more visible to passers-by at the 232 Main St. location. Much of the inventory, which includes rows of Santas, ornaments, tableware, stockings, lights, Christmas trees and gift-wrapping supplies is new, Siegel said.
“A lot of it, truthfully, is new that people may have bought,” she said. “And they’re not going to use it. Or some people actually buy things for the store just to donate it.”
The store is open until Dec. 23 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Saturday and is closed Sunday and Monday for the holiday. The store will be open Tuesday, Dec. 26 through Thursday, Dec. 28 from noon - 4 p.m., and 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. on Friday. The store will wrap up for the season on Friday, Dec. 29.
This story was originally published December 20, 2023 at 4:56 PM.
