Making A Difference: Corner Cupboard hits financial milestone

DAYTON — When it comes to the Corner Cupboard Thrift Store in Dayton, you will never find its 85 volunteers cutting corners.

The business is nestled along East Xenia Avenue and the thrift store is about to celebrate quite a milestone.

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Volunteer Patti Snyder told News Center 7′s James Brown “We’ll hit the $4 million mark, which we are really happy. I’m sure the four ladies who started this business in 1960 never imagined that we would make $4 million.”

All that money has gone to more than 40 area nonprofit organizations.

In 1960, four women from Dayton started collecting donations for their daughters who were nuns in Kentucky. The nuns gave those things to people in Appalachia.

As the Corner Cupboard grew, the moms started selling people’s donations. They used the money to buy food and eventually started donating money.

During News Center 7′s visit to the store, Brown talked with two women who have each donated more than 50 years of their time. Pat Stemley and Carole Wheeler are in charge of getting boys’ clothes ready to sell in the store.

When asked how to describe what goes on at the store, Stemley said, “It’s a beautiful place. It’s bursting with love.” Wheeler called this, “God’s work. Love it. My mom and dad and grandmother all dis this” at the Corner Cupboard.

Around the back of the store, volunteers stopped what they were doing to greet Sandy Porter. She opened the back of her car, and the volunteers went to work pulling out bags and boxes.

Porter said,” There’s people in need all the time. Instead of throwing it away, people can use it. We donate.” She stops by several times a year to donate.

Everyone at the Corner Cupboard is grateful to be a part of a place they know is making a difference. They want folks to know they have open invites to stop by.

The volunteers at the Corner Cupboard said they and the community are already working together on donating the next $4 million to area nonprofits.

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