Save Thrifty Nifty - Black Owned Business

Hi my name is Mary Ferguson and I'm a owner of the Thrifty Nifty store on University Avenue in Saint Paul Minnesota where I've been open for 2 years. My store is 7 blocks away from all the recent tragic fires that happened in the Twin Cities and my community is really suffering both physically and emotionally. I am doing my best to save my business and our community of stores that are affordable for everyone to shop. We have been closed for 3 months due to the Covid 19 pandemic but I cannot bear to let the riots we just experienced affect our communities livelihood by closing down.

I work with my community and their needs and I love giving out clothes and helping people. I like to see the smiles on their faces when they enter my store and continue to hear them ask me 'when can you open'?  Currently it's not 100% safe for me to open and I feel that I will be losing my store if I don't raise money now to continue paying the businesses rent. I am hopeful for our future and know we will get through this together.

This dream of having my own thrift store comes from shopping with my mother in them throughout my childhood. I really enjoyed seeing so many unique and different things all around. I love bringing this to my community where everyone can afford to shop. Please do what you can to not only help me save my business, but also help a community that needs an affordable place to shop, easy access to walk to, and preserve what we have left that wasn't destroyed. 

Thank you all so much in advance for any contribution you can provide. I'm very grateful.