BUSINESS NEWS

Nicole Rogerson stands in front of her new store, Kootenai Thrift. Photo by McKenzie Williams, The Montanian.

 

Kootenai Thrift donates to Kootenai Valley Christian School

By Brian Baxter

 

Nicole Rogerson has opened Kootenai Thrift store, and will donate twenty-five percent of store profits to Kootenai Valley Christian School (KVCS). Rogerson graduated from Chaffey College earning a business degree, with a minor in Hospitality Management. She has worked in purchasing, accounts receivable, vocational rehabilitation, sales and marketing, and as an employment specialist. She also volunteers for Libby Youth Center.

Rogerson is married with one child that attends the KVCS, and she has been a resident of Libby for about three and a half years. She served with the Parent Teacher Fellowship and Fundraising Committee at KVCS for three years, where they raised money for staff appreciation, utility costs, special projects, and a playground. The committee held many in-house sales, yard sales, and estate sales to meet those needs. When asked by The Montanian about her inspiration for this business idea, Rogerson said, “After serving as a volunteer for these projects I knew it was time and a necessity to expand our storage capacity and our availability to turn items into financial support. Kootenai Thrift is not a 501(c)3, and cannot provide tax receipts for donations. Donations or sponsor funds made directly to KVCS, at 1024 Montana Avenue, will receive a tax receipt.

The new store is located at 505 Mineral Avenue and Rogerson’s phone number is 909-489-4090. The store phone is 334-4219, and their email is kootenaithrift@ gmail.com. Rogerson continued, “After careful consideration of all these things, my family decided to take on the responsibilities of such a dream, serving our school and our community in this capacity. It is our dream to provide financial help in the form of scholarship monies to support families that struggle with tuition as I have struggled as a parent. We believe in parental choice for private education and we like to support more families with the ability to attend no matter their financial situation.”

The mission statement of Kootenai Thrift includes their desire to sell quality goods in a second hand/ retail store for our community to reuse and gift these items to others, while providing financial support for local private education. They carry a variety of small furniture, glassware, jewelry, household items, holiday decor, books, new gift items, socks, towels, and crafty art supplies to help support our local Christian school.

The new business wants to provide a new option for those in our community who like to purchase beautiful, clean, used items. They do accept gently used items for the purpose of resale to the community in order to meet those goals.

“It is our goal to be set apart from other stores by specializing in the sale of gently used and re-giftable items,” said Rogerson. “We do not carry large furniture in the store, however we will advertise and sell items through local sites to help families that don’t want the hassle of selling them. We also have covered car ports that allow us to sell large outdoor items like ATV’s and water crafts.”

The building had to be remodeled and there was a lot of electrical work they had to do before opening. Rogerson really wanted to thank folks that helped with this and said, “We would really like to give a special thanks to the people who helped us to accomplish this goal; Gene Rogers, Troy electrician; Ben Fosgate from Best in West Carpet; Manager Cammi Rode and the crew at Western Building Center; Robert Mast; Vicky Johnson; KVCS; as well as Tanya, Billy, Pam and Larry. Without their many talents this would not have been possible.”