Even though it’s no longer selling home wares, the old Big Red Furniture store in downtown Greenville has a line of folks waiting outside in the early morning hours.
They are there because of the mission work now done in that building by the volunteers at St. Vincent de Paul.
The mission, which started in 1992, moved into the four buildings formerly occupied by the furniture store in 2007.
The building hasn’t seen much more than a minor facelift since that time, but thanks to the major benevolence of a St. Joseph Catholic Church parishioner, there’s a full-on renovation happening right now.
The old furniture store consists of a total of four buildings dating from the 1930s and encompasses about 13,500 square feet.
There’s storage areas for clothes, food and home supplies, which are distributed to about 145 people weekly. The number swells into the 250-range during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Julice Curry works as a volunteer, along with about 25 other friends, every week at the operation.
This week, she was moving frozen turkeys through a maze of canned food and clothing racks while workers got busy with the renovation.
The mission is still in operation, but operations are scaled back just a bit while the work is going on.
While food and clothing are an important part of the mission, Curry said it’s not the most important part.
“We pray with them weekly,” she said. “That’s the most important part of the mission for me.”
Each week, those 145 or so people make their way to the mission after having been vetted by guidelines established by WWISCA, but the volunteers aren’t going to turn anyone down who shows up.
“If you show up and are hungry, we’re going to help,” Curry said.
The mission helps in the form of food and clothing, but is also on call for families whose houses were destroyed in fires.
All of the supplies are from donations made to St. Vincent de Paul.
Those donations are accepted on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at the back of the building on Washington Avenue.
Volunteers then sort the clothing and household items and prepare them for redistribution on Wednesdays.
The work being done on the building includes roof repair, a new facade with glass and doors and new carpet on the inside.
