The Connections for Life Thrift Store, at 2286 Highland Road between Taylor and West Harding streets, carries everything from vintage clothing to 101 Dalmatians snow globes to plush, barely used black leather couches, all at absurdly low prices.
But most customers are unaware that with each dollar spent, they’re contributing to improving the lives of women trying to start over, 225 details in a feature from its latest issue.
Connections for Life is a nonprofit that helps women leaving prison, treatment facilities and battered women’s shelters to develop a healthy lifestyle. Thrift store sales are the main source of funds keeping the nonprofit afloat, and its year-long program allows women to work there as store cashiers and assistants.
The program also offers food, clothing and shelter, as well as support groups, substance abuse meetings, education, individual counseling and assistance in finding housing and employment. Many women in the program are living on their own for the first time.
“There really are too few places for women leaving prison and coming back into the community,” says Karen Stagg, the program’s executive director. “Of course generally there are more incarcerated men, but at the same time there’s just not enough places for women to go.”
Stagg, who has been with the program for nine of its 16 years, meets the women while they’re still incarcerated. The day they’re released from prison, she picks them up, and they begin their 12-month journey.
“This program saved my life,” says Cortney Bradley, a 27-year-old from Arkansas. “I didn’t feel like I could ever amount to anything, and that’s what I had been told all my life.”
