Grand Opening Jan 17 at 7 a.m.

Published 4:00 pm Sunday, January 13, 2013

A new business opening in Tillamook County is cause for celebration. In a depressed economy where families are looking to save money and record number of people are out of work, Tillamook is blessed with a new business opening that will provide assistance for both.

Tillamook Goodwill’s Grand Opening ceremony will take place at 7 a.m. on Jan. 17 and promises to be a huge event.

I’m really looking forward to finally getting the store open, said Goodwill senior district manager Phil Paradis. Grand Openings are always a blast because there are so many people. It’s so busy and there’s so many people exited, it’s fun. ?People will not only attend the Grand Opening to witness the ceremony, but according to the Tillamook Goodwill store manager Cameron Cusick, there will be plenty of people there to shop.

At other similar Grand Openings, we’ve had huge lines of people waiting to get in, Cusick said.

According to Cusick, the Tillamook store will be a larger sized store.

Smaller than the Warrenton store, but larger than Lincoln City, Cusick explained.

The store will be loaded with items that have been collected and brought to Tillamook from various other stores to fill the shelves for the opening. Everything from clothes to shoes to microwaves to blenders and beyond will be stocked and priced by Goodwill’s standard pricing system, Cusick explained. It’s determined corporately by Goodwill. We have an Operations Department that has set a standard price guide based on branding. If you brought in a Nike t-shirt, we can look it up in a book and we know what the price is going to be. It’s universal across the stores.

If you go into the Goodwill in Warrenton, you’ll find a lot of t-shirts that are $4.99. If you went into the Lincoln City store, those t-shirts will still be $4.99. There has been speculation in the past that the pricing has been very ambiguous and it’s not. There’s no guess work.

The store promises to have a plethora of used items for sale at low prices, but it will have new items purchased from a manufacturer like other stores as well.

To keep the quality of the items donated up to Goodwill’s standards, they have a set guideline as to what they can and can’t accept as donations and how to classify the things they are accepted at the Tillamook store.

Items that are brought in to the Tillamook store and we deem sellable are processed and priced on site and put out of the floor and given a chance to sell, Cusick said. If it doesn’t sell, then it’s sent out to other stores to give it another shot to sell. This comes into play more often with specialty items that would be more specific to a certain taste or or location.?When you’re dealing with used goods, obviously quality plays a roll. We don’t want to put things on the floor that are stained or dirty or have holes, and we don’t have the facility to wash apparel here, so we take the best of the best. The textiles we can’t sell get baled and they are sold to a third party vendor. That party can take them where ever, but they often go overseas. The important part is they don’t to to a landfill.

Goodwill is a nonprofit organization that goes far beyond the standard idea of a retail store. The corporation also offers Job Connection services to people who have barriers to employment.

Barriers to employment can mean anything, Cusick said. A mental disability, an emotional disability or someone who’s been out of the workforce for 20 or 30 years like maybe a stay-at-home mom that wants to get back in the workforce would be examples. Barriers to employment is very broad term.

Job Connection service is funded solely through the store. Ninety-four cents of every dollar the store takes in goes to Job Connection service. That mission is to help people find jobs or get jobs here. We do resume training and network within the community to find business that are hiring. Basically a lot like what WorkSource Oregon does, but it’s a free service to the community.

The Job Connection Service is certainly something locals might be interested in utilizing, but there is a large group of people in Tillamook County who’ve already taken advantage of an employment opportunity.

Of the 32 employees hired for to the staff of the new store, 27 of are from Tillamook, Cusick said. The other five are Goodwill employees from other stores I believe are all moving to Tillamook.

The opening of the 47th Goodwill in Tillamook is not only exciting for Cusick, but he says people in the community seem to be excited as well.

I’m pumped that the community is pumped, Cusick laughed. I can’t go to Fred Meyer with my Goodwill shirt on without people bombarding me with questions about when the store is opening and what kind of things will be for sale. It shows the community’s excitement, which makes this whole thing exciting.

One of the biggest things I want the community to know is Goodwill wanted to be part of this community and is happy to be joining it.

Simply because a business is new and people are excited about it’s Grand Opening doesn’t guarantee the businesses’ long term success. But senior district manager Phil Paradis is very confident about the store’s potential.

I think the store will be extremely successful, Paradis said. We’ve found ourselves to be very successful in more remote locations like Warrenton, Lincoln City and Scappoose because the community seems to be so inviting to us and happy to have us there.

In a community like Tillamook where you have limited places to shop, we’re well accepted because were another source for locals to find their goods.