Mission Thrift held its second-ever warehouse event Friday, May 1 at Calvary Chapel of Lynchburg to kick off the month, bringing over 10,000 items for sale from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The store took over the church’s parking lot, setting out several rows of bins filled with donated clothes and shoes. Trucks came in every hour to refill stock, and over the course of the day, customers sorted through the bins, paying only $3 for each item.
“We debated back and forth a while about what the price was going to be,” Ashleigh Stephens, the general store manager at Mission Thrift of Forest, said. “We just decided … three dollars is going to bring the most people out.”
The first Mission Thrift event was held Oct. 3, 2025, and was so successful that the organization decided to repeat it.
“The goal is (to hold this event) semiannually,” Stevens said. “The goal is honestly October, hopefully of this year; we’ll do another one for our spring and summer supply.”
Joe Bean’s, which has a location in the same parking lot, partnered with Mission Thrift and offered a buy-one-get-one coupon to the first 500 people to purchase an item at the event, according to a Facebook post by Mission Thrift Rivermont.
There are three stores located in Lynchburg and one in Forest, with locations on Bedford Avenue, Forest Road, Waterlick Road and Wards Road, according to themissionthrift.org. The one on Bedford Avenue was the first in Central Virginia.
Mission Thrift is committed to helping the community with frequent events and donations to local charities. Proceeds from sales often go to local organizations. Special offers happen weekly and are announced on Mission Thrift’s Facebook page in advance.
“It’s purely community based,” Stevens said. “These kinds of events definitely bring attention that maybe people aren’t aware of our missions, of our partners, of what we do, why we do it. Events like this definitely bring a lot more people out. We’ve been blessed. God has blessed us tremendously with a bunch of donations and we want to give back.”
Huckabay is a copy editor for the Liberty Champion.