The Monday After: Stark County Preservation Society's store sells the past for a cause

For more than a dozen years, Stark County Preservation Society's Resale Store has been preserving history one cast-off item at a time.

Operated by Executive Director Joe Engel and volunteers since 2008, the store at 1223-1227 Tuscarawas St. W in Canton has been extending the life of our cherished keepsakes, aging antiques, trusted everyday items, colorful decorative pieces, festive holiday items, and yes, occasional oddities.

"Most of what we have comes from private donors," said Engel. "Some of it is from estates or just people downsizing or relocating out of state.

"We receive many antiques from elderly people who were holding on to things for their family, and their children don't want them so they end up donating them because they know the money will go to a good cause.”

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Profits from the sale of items – which include lighting, appliances, windows, doors and other salvage items – go to help fund the society and its preservation efforts, toward helping to save what is special about area history. The society's mission is to encourage "the preservation and restoration of structures and neighborhoods."

For example, the store's operation pays for much of the overhead costs of the society's offices in the historic Hartung House on Wertz Avenue NW.

Store opened with a cause

Engel noted that discussion of opening the Resale Store began 16 years ago.

"My background has been in interior design and retailing. That's my expertise," he said. "So, when I came aboard I suggested that we get donations of things and resell them to fund the society, and the board agreed."

For the first year of so, donations were collected at the Hartung House and sold at yard sales there. Then, Engel approached the owner of the vacant building where the store now is located. That individual renovated the building at no cost to CPS, and gave the store years of free rent. Even now, the society pays only a nominal amount to rent the space.

In addition to volunteers, the store is staffed by trainees in a government program called Vantage Aging, Engel notes in an upcoming newsletter article.

"The program is for low-income people 55 and older to be able to be trained in a position/job that they have not worked in previously," he explains, noting that the government pays the trainees Ohio's minimum wage for working up to 25 hours per week. "Canton Preservation Society signed up for the program in 2004 and has had trainees ever since."

The shop's customers are loyal.

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"I try to go once a week," said Lori Briggs of Canton. "I've become friends with Joe and his staff and I've become a member of the Preservation Society. If I haven't stopped in for a few days they'll say ‘Where were you, Lori? We missed you!’"

Briggs deals in antiques, so she is most interested in furniture.

"They have a pretty diverse selection of furniture, from high-end pieces to pieces that are great to re-do," she said.

The latter likely was why Briggs "zeroed in on the upholstery" that almost continually is on sale at the store. She suggests others stop at the shop because of its selection.

Low prices probably draw in many customers.

"Our prices are based on the quality," said Engel, who said that as a result, some unique and high-quality items can be more costly. But, he noted that since many dealers shop at the store to pick up items to resell, the prices cannot be out of line.

Most of the stock shelved at the store is priced at a "five-and-dime" store level, some of it literally.

"We have things priced for as low at a nickel," he said. "And we have a lot of things priced at 25 cents. Housewares – dishes and utensils."

Sometimes, the store's extensive stock of inexpensive "craftable" items precedes itself – to the store's disadvantage, Engel suggests with a laugh.

"We have one person who comes in pretty regularly. She buys things to make craft items that she can sell. I once told her to 'tell your friends about us.' She answered, 'Oh, no, I don't want them to know they can get all this stuff.'"

Unique items found in store

Visitors also find oddities displayed among the traditional resale shop stock.

"One of the most unique items we had was a male and female sarcophagus," recalled Engel. "But, when you opened it up there were bookcase shelves. It sold."

Urns for cremated ashes also are a donation.

"We have a tall urn with a carved elephant on it," said Engel. "There are three compartments, for father, mother and child."

Currently on sale is a 7-foot-tall leather giraffe.

Unique items wait for "one special buyer." Other items – such as holiday decorative pieces that become popular after Labor Day – fly off shelves.

"I always tell people who hesitate and say they want time to think about it that they better buy it now," said Engel, "because it probably won't be there tomorrow."

The store has grown through the years it has been in existence.

"From the opening of the store we occupied only the 1227 section of the building," Engel explained in his newsletter article. "After several years of operation, we were able to extend the retail section of the store into where we warehoused merchandise before putting it into the store. When opening the warehouse to the public as a store we put all large items, including furniture, in the warehouse allowing more space for smaller items in the original store location."

In the article, he also addressed the history of the structure that holds the store, and detailed the building's unique design.

"As I mentioned previously, we have the warehouse and the store. They are actually two different buildings 1223 and 1227 West Tuscarawas Street. Although the buildings are completely separate on the first floor that is not true on the floors above. The upper three floors are as one and originally housed a chamber maid hotel, meaning no indoor restroom. A chamber maid took care of emptying the 'pots.'"

The Resale Store remains dedicated to the community, including providing affordably priced items to people who can't afford to shop for new products.

"It allows people who don't have the means to go out and buy (new) things," said Engel, "and they're helping us by shopping here."

Engel said the store continually gets new donors and customers.

"Every day we have new shoppers who have never been in the store," said Engel, who noted that the store's hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. It is closed Sunday and Monday, and holidays.

The store's entrance for both customers and donors is off the parking lot at the rear of the building. For information, call 330-456-6881.

"Many tell us they have passed the store many times but never stopped. We hear time and time again how surprised our shoppers are when entering the store to find so many great finds."

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: The Monday After: Stark County Preservation Society's Resale Store sells the past for a cause