Country Store thriving in new location

Volunteers Phyllis Dresen and Jan Dybdal were in charge of the Country Store last Friday afternoon at its new location at 5 4th Ave. W. in Polson.

With volunteers wheeling clothes racks down the street and loading trailers with goods from their former Main Street location, the Country Store relocated to the former Odyssey Auto Glass building last March.

The tenants are enthusiastic about their new digs. “It’s all in one big room,” said Dybdal.

Both members of Friday’s crew also agreed the 1,700 square-foot shop with north-facing windows is nice and bright.

Best-selling goods this time of year are coats, hats and purses, the two women agreed, as customers prepare for winter.

The Country Store is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization with workers coming from 10 local churches. Members of each church take turns clerking and stocking the store for a half-day shift each week. The women, and a few men, sort, press, hang and put donations away.

“The number of crew members depends on the church,” Dresen said. “Sometimes it’s one or two, sometimes it four or six.”

All the folks who volunteer their time are constantly rearranging goods so everything has a place. The Country Store generally gets donations of clothes, shoes, and smaller household items.

“We don’t have room for huge appliances,” Dresen explained. As it is, their storage area is full.

“People are very generous with their donations,” Dybdal noted.

She’s noticed that nicer things are being donated, some even with the price tags still attached. If items don’t sell at the Country Store, the group sends the goods to Flathead Industries in Kalispell.

“Everybody wins,” Dresen explained. “What we don’t sell, we pass on.”

The group receives donations from the community, sells the goods, and gives local non-profits a share of the proceeds, including Cheerful Heart, the Boys and Girls Club, Helping Hands, Loaves and Fish, the senior centers in Polson and Ronan, and Tribal Waves – Youth with A Mission. Any funds left are divided among the 10 churches.

The Country Store donates children’s things, especially spare clothes, to the schools. Fire victims, who might have lost all their belongings, can come to the store for clothing and bedding. People who don’t have coats are fitted out with warm winter wear.

The store is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. weekdays. For more information, call 406-883-3033.