Fifty years of helping people is a rare thing, even among the largest of organizations, but when it’s the smallest of enterprises that itself depends on the public for help, it’s exceptional.
That’s why praise for the Church Mouse Thrift Shop at a short ceremony marking its half-century of service last week in Berlin was unquestionably sincere.
The congratulatory speeches offered just plain heartfelt thanks, instead of the platitudes and routinely issued hurrahs that are often heard at such affairs.
At a time when so many people disagree with each other, often to the extreme, it’s comforting to know that good work, selflessly pursued, still means something to just about everyone.
An extension of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the Church Mouse, long under the guidance of early volunteers Annabelle Hastings and Ruth Neville, and for the last 10 years Helen Wiley, grew into more than a successful charity to become a community institution.
That’s a spectacular achievement, considering that at one point during its earlier years it operated out of a warehouse with a dirt floor.
In addition to the church, volunteers and the operation’s leadership, a good deal of the credit for the Church Mouse’s success is the town itself and the residents, merchants and business people who have supported it, bought from it and donated to it since the 1960s.
In that regard, this golden anniversary is a celebration of the community overall. As good a job as the Church Mouse has done, and no matter how much effort its workers put into it, it wouldn’t have worked without townwide support.
Congratulate the Church Mouse, and congratulate yourselves for helping it happen.