How Do I Love the Pennyworth Shop? Let Me Count the Ways

If you’re one of the those parents who give their kids healthy food with the regrettable result that they grow constantly and sometimes unexpectedly, your best friend is on Bonifant Street, around the corner from the Safeway and across the street from a gunshop, a tattoo parlor and a second hand bookstore. (The bookstore ain’t bad either if your kids are into Hardy Boys, but I digress.)

I love the Pennyworth Shop— a church-run thrift store in Silver Spring with rock-bottom prices and sometimes stunningly perfect products. And, here’s the wonderful kicker, you can ditch stuff there too.

The first time I went to the Pennyworth Shop, it was to deliver household excess shed by a downsizing mother-in-law. As I dropped off out-of-style couch pillows, clothes that no longer fit and pumps that no reasonable retiree would subject herself to, I saw my nirvana: LL Bean brand snow boots in my kids’ size. For $1. I practically threw myself on them.

Thus was born a ritual. Every couple of months, my kids go through their drawers and find the stuff that doesn’t fit and the hand-me-downs they really never liked. That gets bagged up, and we head to the Pennyworth Shop. Walking. (Did I mention that you can walk to the Pennyworth Shop from my home in North Takoma? Take that Value Village!)

I donate our excess, and feel good about it since some really poor people shop there.

Then, I let the kids root through the clothes in their size. This is the other glorious thing about the Pennyworth Shop. It’s a little on the small side, which means you can root through the inventory in a half hour or so. Since I have little tolerance for shopping, this to me is a benefit. Usually my kids go nuts, and this is one time I really can afford to indulge them. Usually, my daughter wants everything glittery, and my son wants all the clothes with sports mentioned. Then I talk them down to 1) what they really need, 2) the items in good condition and 3) a couple of items they don’t need but they love.

The end result is usually a paper grocery bag full of this and that— and a bill for $26.

I usually refrain from kissing the volunteers behind the counter but not always.

And while the kids are shopping, I find treasures. I bought a raft of nice wicker baskets and pretty tins one year for the cookies we give teachers and crossing guards each Christmas. I’ve found partial skeins of yarn, and used them to make hats that are probably now in the Piney Branch Elementary School lost and found. I’ve found herringbone fabric that someone clearly made into strips to weave a rug.

The Pennyworth Shop apparently has plans to close for a few days and move up the street a few storefronts. The new place will be bigger, a volunteer told me. But, dear Pennyworth Shop, don’t ever change. Don’t ever change. I love you just the way you are.