Community dedicates new Habitat Thrift Store

Sisters residents braved a torrential morning downpour to participate in the Sisters Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store dedication Saturday, May 31.

Theresa Slavokovsky, who purchased the first Habitat home in Sisters, quipped, "Rain is great. The Lord is baptizing the Habitat project."

Pastor Jim Gentry of the Baptist Church said the opening prayer.

Referring to donations to the thrift shop, Pastor Ed Beacham of Chapel in the Pines noted that "there is such a unique quality about giving in God's name."

Habitat President Bruce Vaughan said the new building is "a very visible demonstration of what can be accomplished through the cooperation of an entire community."

Bob Sherman, Habitat's building committee chair, noted a long list of project contributors attached to the outside entrance of the new building.

Sherman thanked the contractors and suppliers.

"And the other half of the equation," he said, "are the volunteer workers," who contributed a total of about 5,000 volunteer hours to erect the structure.

Special thanks went to co-managers of the thrift shop, Jan Baldwin and Kathy Goodwin.

Barbara Hinkey and her mother will live in the eighth and newest Habitat house.

"I can't find words to tell you the gratitude I feel," Hinkey said. "Sisters is a community that really cares."

Slavokovsky told "what this affordable, decent, warm housing has done" for her family.

Her 16-year-old son is an honor student involved in band and high school athletics. Her 14-year-old daughter is an "A" student -- Student of the Year last year -- and uses some of her baby-sitting money to sponsor a Ugandan child's education. Slavokovsky's youngest is an avid reader, writer and singer.

In his blessing Reverend Larry Harrelson of the Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration noted that, "This building has already been hallowed by all the work done on and in the building."

Pastor Ron Gregg of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church offered the closing prayer.

The Sisters Habitat affiliate was formed in 1991 by Julia and Hort Hammond and housed in the Lutheran Church. In seven years the organization has built seven houses, is preparing an eighth, and has a new home in the upstairs of the Thrift Store Building on West Main in downtown Sisters.

The thrift store is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.