Mt. Vernon’s Hope Center to move to new location on Main Street

 Group shooting for June 1 opening after updates, repairs to much larger home
The Hope Center Thrift Store will move to a new location this summer. If everything goes according to plan, the organization will be operating out of the old G & W Building on Main Street by June 1.
David Nordyke, senior minister at First Christian Church and a member of the Hope Center Board, said moving to the G & W Building will give the organization more room in which to work.
“The purpose behind it is we are going from about 4,500 square feet total to about 14,500 square feet, and this will allow us to have approximately 1,400 square feet of sorting space and 8,500 square feet of retail space, and almost another 4,000 square feet of storage space, all at one location,” he said. “Ultimately, the idea is, the more space we have, the more goods we have the opportunity to resale, which means the more assistance we’re able to give to people in the community.”
Nordyke added that a series of events led to the Main Street Market Building being chosen as the new location.
“We had been talking about relocating the facility for the last several years, but it was kind of a combination of needing the right amount of funds and finding the right kind of building that would work,” he said. “It just so happened that we were working with Dean Mikkelson, who is a realtor with ReeceNichols, and we had started looking at another property, and we sort of threw out the idea, ‘Hey, what about the old G & W building?’ One thing led to the other, and we contacted the owners, and they said, ‘Yeah, we’d be interested in talking with the Hope Center about this,’ and so we began conversations with them in November, and we did a series of inspections that ultimately led to the purchase of the building.”
 The G & W Building has sat vacant for a number of years, and so time and neglect have taken their toll. David Gregersen, minister at the Mt. Vernon Church of Christ and also a member of the Hope Center Board, said the building will require a lot of work to ensure it will be ready to open by June 1.
“We’ve got a lot of repairs that we’re having done,” he said. “We’re redoing the ceiling tiles, redoing the wiring and the lighting, and some work on the floor. We are also having to get rid of some stuff that’s left in there from the old flea market, just various items.”
Gregersen said the building will also need work on its air conditioning and plumbing, and it will need a lot of painting as well.
“(There’s) just a lot of prep work to get it ready for the public to be able to use it,” he said.
To help get the building ready, Gregersen said the Hope Center will be asking for volunteers to come and help with some of the work needed.
“We’ll be seeking volunteers at the various projects that we have, and we welcome volunteers from the community as we prioritize the (work) we need to do to get into there by June,” he said.
Gregersen also said the new location will allow the Hope Center to expand the variety of items it sells.
“We are looking forward to moving into that area,” he said. “We are hoping to expand from clothing and dishes and things like that to being able to sell donated furniture to people and appliances and things like that. We’ll have much more space and we’ll be able to increase the variety of things that we’re able to sell in our inventory.”
Anyone interested in volunteering to help work on the Hope Center’s new location is encouraged to go to the center’s current location at 722 W. Mt. Vernon Blvd. and speak with Tina Mulleady, director of the Hope Center.