What is Community Outreach and Thrift Store?
A single individual in Fannin County wanted to start this organization as a “pay it forward” type of program. This organization has grown exponentially in its first 20 months and has now been able to help 1000’s in our community and surrounding areas. It has now moved to its current location of 21,000 sq ft at 4177 East 1st Street Blue Ridge GA.
The only requirement that this individual has made is that everything that is given away is done so without any kind of verification process. No income verification. No driver’s license checked. In other words, COMPLETELY FREE. We fill our front sidewalk full 1 Saturday per month and give away “FREE STUFF” (everything on the sidewalk) consisting of clothing, shoes, books, dvds, vhs, tapes, cds, bedding, furniture, small household appliances, home decor, large appliances, mattress and box springs, etc.
Anyone is welcome to donate to the Community Outreach Thrift Store at any time. We ask that you do not leave mattresses that need to go to the landfill or old projection type or old box TVs as it costs us $12.50 each to dump these.
The thrift store is run only to pay the bills of the entire building and to keep providing the free items. The building houses the outreach center, jail ministries offices and the Bible study room, vendor’s booths as well as the thrift store. We donate Bibles and other books to the jail ministries as well as providing them with free of charge space for their offices so they may continue their good work. PB&J Ministries is a ministry that focuses on our local Fannin County jail and the women’s prison in Alto, GA. They provide Bibles, study lessons and counseling as well as weekly visits to women in need.
We have opened our first homeless shelter for single men. We hope to follow this one with our first single women’s shelter soon. Any help you can provide will be much appreciated. The Community Outreach provides the home, electric, water, gas heat, food, toiletries and all furniture and necessities needed for up to 6 months for each guest. Each individual must work at least 15 hours per week volunteering at the thrift store. Anything they work over that gets paid to them as a regular paycheck. We hope that they will save their monies and be able to better provide for themselves upon exiting the program.
We also work with the North Georgia Mountain Crisis Network in helping individuals when leaving the shelter to receive any material goods needed when setting up their new homes free of charge with no strings attached. They never have to repay anything back to us or even volunteer their time.
We work with DFCS providing free clothes for children and other necessities.
The Community Outreach Center Thrift Store hours are from 10am to 6pm Monday through Saturday. We try to keep updated information on the Community Outreach page. If anyone is in need, please do not hesitate to call us or message us on the page.
We are currently trying to line up our own food bank to be able to further help our community! There will be free food given out weekly and a discount food store for those in the community that would like to save some money and help provide free food to those in need as all proceeds from this store will go to buy more food.
It is our wish to continue this work at this permanent location that is easily accessible to all who have need of help. If you would be able to provide any help whatsoever whether it be financial or volunteer help we would be greatly appreciative. You may reach us at 706-946-2060 or comes see us in person at 4177 East 1st Street Blue Ridge, GA 30513 if you have any questions. Thank you so much for your time.
