In an age when caring about the environment and “tidying up” with Marie Kondo is all the rage, local thrift shops have been reaping all of the benefits.

Linda Mariner, a manager at the thrift shop, Cherry Door, said she has noticed a definite shift in customers in Waynesburg.

“I feel that people are beginning to realize the value of recycling instead of buying things brand new,” Mariner said. “We get up to 200 people a day, and many of them are people of means. They just like the idea of coming in here, getting a bargain, they wear it, they bring it back.”

Between young moms who come in to get children’s clothing and the homeowners who seek out unique and lightly used decorations, Mariner said the business they get is booming — and blooming.

“In the last six months, the drop-offs have been unbelievable,” she said. “I think the recycling thing is great.”

Cheryl Poplawski, the manager at Hidden Treasures, said the steady income of donations at her store has been happening since March.

“We go through spurts where we get a lot of donations,” Poplawski said.

For Poplawski, the donation process works like clockwork.

“We go out to the car, we help them empty it and bring it into the building,” she said.

From there, the Hidden Treasure workers dump the donations into different large boxes they call “gaylords.” Each item, such as clothing and everything else the staff calls “brick-brack,”–a thrifter vocabulary word for everything from pots and pans to knick-knacks and more–is properly separated.

“If it’s really trash, then we do pitch it,” Poplawski said. “From there, we value it on eBay [and other] different sites.”

After the donated items are organized and valued, anything that doesn’t make the cut isn’t wasted or thrown away. Instead, it is transferred back to City Mission, which is the overarching organization which Hidden Treasures is nested under.

“Anything we have that we can’t put out is distributed to other stores,” she said. “We try to reuse, reuse, reuse and send things out to other stores.”

Cherry Door also receives a wide array of donations. Items including suitcases, decorating items, bedspreads, sheets, towels, clothing, craft items and more can show up at any time to be donated.

“We probably have 4,000 books alone,” Mariner said. “People are liking the idea of dropping their things here.”

As an auxiliary out of the WHS-Greene hospital, Mariner said the underlying mission is giving back to the community. For example, they offer a $2,000 scholarship to nursing students at Waynesburg University.

“I invite you to come and see,” Mariner said. “We get so many drop-offs.”