Habitat’s ReStore makes home improvement projects affordable | Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — Home improvements can be very costly, especially in these days of skyrocketing prices for materials and amenities.

In Winchester, there’s a store that sells home improvement items at a fraction of their retail value and gives all of its proceeds to charity. That store is the ReStore.

Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity in Winchester has operated the ReStore since October 2006 — first at 536 N. Cameron St., then at 1944 Abrams Creek Drive, then at 400 Battaile Drive and, since August 2023, at 443 Millwood Ave.

“The purpose of the ReStore is to help fund Habitat’s mission of building safe and affordable homes for people in need,” the store’s assistant manager, Izzy France, said this week. “Everything that we sell … 100% of that goes back to Habitat.”

“The funds that come in go to not only new home construction but also our repair program and our aging-in-place program, which supports primarily seniors and veterans,” added Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Kim Herbstritt. “The staff [of seven paid employees and a fluctuating number of volunteers] is always working to be really good stewards of the funds and donated items that we get.”

Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity, which was established in Winchester in 1997, is a nonprofit that makes it possible for working families with limited incomes to afford new homes and maintain the ones they’re in.

The organization’s ReStore is, in essence, a thrift shop that specializes in providing new and used items that are needed in and around the home — everything from plumbing fixtures and furniture and workout equipment to appliances and tools and utensils. Its inventory constantly fluctuates and changes based on whatever donations come in from local businesses and individuals.

When the ReStore was located in a large warehouse on Battaile Drive, much of its inventory was comprised of construction materials like lumber, pipes and flooring. Herbstritt said those items are not generally offered at the Millwood Avenue location — not because there’s a lack of space, but because retail prices for those things skyrocketed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and builders are now repurposing materials for their other projects.

Items at the ReStore are grouped together logically and in neat rows, making it easy to browse the aisles or go directly to what you need.

“So now we’ve got the one room with all the furniture and another room with all of our home supplies, tools, all of that kind of stuff — just to make the flow a little bit better, make it more of a conducive shopping environment,” France said. “But it’s always changing because we don’t have a consistent inventory.”

That shifting inventory makes a visit to the ReStore akin to a treasure hunt. Occasionally you’ll find something completely unexpected, like a case of hair dye that France said was recently donated by Winchester’s Home Depot store.

“We’ve got some regular customers that come in several times a week … because you never know what deal you’re going to miss out on,” Herbstritt said.

One of the easiest ways to keep tabs on the latest merchandise is by visiting the Winchester ReStore’s Facebook page at facebook.com/winchesterrestore, where Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity Director of Development and Marketing Buck Buckley posts photos of many of the offerings as they come in.

Since the Facebook page has more than 32,000 followers, Buckley said, “There are occasions where we have a line at the door when we open.”

Donated items are either delivered to the store or picked up for free by a ReStore truck, which serves the same area as Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity: Winchester and Frederick, Clarke and Shenandoah counties.

“We get maybe 30, 40, 50 people a day that come in with a box of stuff because they’re downsizing or whatever,” France said. “For the donation pickups that we do, we get a lot of house clean outs.”

Buckley said the easiest way to arrange a pickup by the ReStore truck is to go to BlueRidgeHabitat.org and click on “Request Donation Pick Up” at the top of the homepage.

“They can fill out a quick form and it puts it in the queue, then we’ll sort through it and get right back to them,” he said.

When used items come in, ReStore staff and volunteers clean and sanitize everything before placing them on the sales floor.

“We can’t take anything that is excessively damaged or dirty,” France said. “We have a health code to follow so no mattresses, no boxsprings. Any kind of furniture that’s upholstered cannot have any rips or tears.”

They also said the ReStore cannot accept clothing, TVs manufactured more than five years ago, or any tool or piece of equipment that has not had all of the gasoline drained out of it. Pianos are accepted but the donors have to arrange delivery to the store on their own.

Buckley said donating items to the ReStore helps not only Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity but the environment as well.

“You’re keeping goods out of the landfill,” he said. “That’s an important aspect of the ReStore.”

The Winchester ReStore has been a vital funding arm of Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity for nearly 20 years, but Herbstritt said she doesn’t take the store’s success for granted.

“We’re always looking at where we are today and what’s happening, and where we expect to be a year from now, three years from now, five years from now,” she said. “It’s constantly working to be relevant and to ensure we’re being good stewards of the funds and accomplishing the mission.”

The Winchester ReStore at 443 Millwood Ave. is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. For more information, visit blueridgehabitat.org/restore.