If you haven’t been inside 125 West Main Street since it was CommunityWorx, it’s time that you pay a visit. I know that it was the PTA Thrift Shop, which is what half of Carrboro still calls it, and which has been some version of itself since 1952, when the Chapel Hill Art Guild started it to fund art classes in the schools. I stopped in this week because I wanted to show some out-of-town guests what the new owner had done to the place, because it is something to see.

If you missed the March piece, the short version: Extraordinary Ventures, the Chapel Hill nonprofit that creates jobs for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, took over the space in January, cleared it out, repainted it, and reopened on February 27. The store runs with a mixed staff, ten neurodivergent employees and fourteen neurotypical ones at opening, and about ninety people were on the waiting list for a job. That's the mission. Now let me tell you about the store.

It is clean. It is organized. One of my guests, who has seen a lot of thrift stores, was absolutely delighted, more like a kid in a candy store. Clothing and shoes are sorted so you can actually browse, and the household section runs from everyday dishes to vintage pieces and jewelry. Furniture is the one thing they've cut back on, although I really appreciated the armchair I got to chill in while I was waiting for her to wrap up her shopping trip. It makes for a very pleasant rummage, the kind where you walk in for nothing in particular and walk out with your bag in hand.

But the thing I didn't know until this week is the part I came home wanting to tell you about.

For years, CommunityWorx ran a voucher program with local agencies. The Inter-Faith Council, the Refugee Community Partnership, TABLE, and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools gave vouchers to the people they serve, and those people came in and shopped. Not a bag of pre-sorted castoffs handed over a counter. A rack, a fitting room, a choice.

When Extraordinary Ventures took over, that program could have quietly ended. It didn't. They use gift cards instead of vouchers now. Brandon, a manager who went the extra mile, clued me in to how the thrift store partners with other nonprofits in the community.

So the sweater you drop off in the back lot ends up on a rack, and it gets bought by you, or by someone shopping with a gift card from the IFC, and either way the store keeps going with its mission. That's a good loop.

Extraordinary Thrift is at 125 W. Main St. in Carrboro, open Tuesday through Saturday 10 to 6 and Sunday 12 to 6. Donations go to the back parking lot any day they're open, until 5. Seniors get 10 percent off on Tuesdays, veterans on Wednesdays, college students on Fridays, and CHCCS teachers and staff on Saturdays. If you have some time to breathe, interact with amazing cashiers and helpful staff, and find a treasure or two (or three), check them out.

Hey Insiders. We've been dealing with a bit of an identity crisis over the last several issues. If you've noticed a Chatham Park story here, a Pittsboro breakfast there, a whole feature from the other side of 15-501, you weren't imagining it. Tomorrow we solve it. We're launching The Pittsboro Post, and it will be keeping you in the know on all things Pittsboro, Siler City, Moncure, and Chatham County. Things are growing and bustling down there, and we want to stay in the mix, stay on top of it, and share some of the excitement with you.

Tomorrow's first issue is going to be exciting. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a beat.

UNC's home opener against East Tennessee State should have been a celebration: Kenan's 100th season, new screens and sound, and a win over TCU in Dublin to open the year. Instead, general manager Michael Lombardi resigned last week amid a university investigation of the program, WRAL reported allegations of sexual relationships and drug use inside it, and Steve Belichick remains on medical leave with no timetable. At Monday's press conference, Bill Belichick said he understands the importance of the investigative team's work and declined to answer questions about it. The game is still at noon Saturday.

The Burwell School Historic Site in Hillsborough has adopted a new name honoring Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, who was enslaved there before becoming a nationally known dressmaker, author, and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. The building keeps its history; the name now tells more of it.

Some version of the Dual Supply Co. has sat in downtown Hillsborough for about 70 years. The hardware store is now in its final sale ahead of closing. If you've bought a single bolt there and had someone walk you to the right bin, you know what's leaving.

Orange County commissioners have dedicated the county's future crisis diversion facility in memory of their late colleague Jamezetta Bedford, whose seat Rani Dasi filled this summer. Commissioners called it a lasting tribute to her.

NCDOT switched on the new westbound on-ramp from Highway 86 to I-40 on Saturday, Aug 29. If your commute takes you north out of Chapel Hill toward Hillsborough or Durham, the old detour is over.

UNC students and local activists demonstrated outside the Carolina Inn during a G20 innovation ministerial focused on AI last week. Their tactic was noise: they made as much of it as they could to stand in for the hum of large AI data centers. Whatever you think of the argument, it was a very Chapel Hill way to make it.

Thoreau would have liked Extraordinary Thrift. I've now been twice in six months, once on assignment and once as a tour guide, and the second visit was better than the first: the shelves are fuller, the sorting is sharper, and the gift-card partnership with the IFC and others is quietly doing what it's supposed to do. If you've got a closet to clean out this month, you know where to take it. And if you've got a Saturday, check it out.

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