HEAR YE! HEAR YE!

Since its founding two years ago, The Fabulous Find: A Caring Community Thrift Shop in Kittery, Maine has donated more than $250,000 in shop revenues back to Piscataqua Region non-profits. For November 2012 the beneficiaries were the African Burying Ground Memorial Park in Portsmouth and York Land Trust. At the reception announcing the results, Board members Marcye Philbrook, Anne Bryer, Phyllis Welch and Anne Hunt (store manager), presented $8,000, divided evenly between the two. (Continued below)

Vernis Jackson, chair of the City of Portsmouth’s African Burying Ground Committee accepted the $4,000 check saying, “I am completely stunned and immensely grateful for the support of The Fabulous Find and the wonderful Board, staff, volunteers and supporters who helped make this incredible gift possible. We are well on our way to our financial goal for creating the African Burying Ground Memorial Park and this donation will go directly toward the effort to get the actual project started in 2013.” The Committee hopes to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of the rediscovery of the African Burying Ground next October with visible progress on the actual site on Chestnut Street in downtown Portsmouth.

Each month, the Board and volunteers who operate The Fabulous Find, select a different community organization as the beneficiary of the shop’s profits. The organizations are encouraged to enlist their members, friends and neighbors to shop and donate to The Fabulous Find during “their” month. The beneficiary in December is the Kittery Fuel & More program, an all-volunteer initiative formed over four years ago that has provided more than $150,000 in heating assistance to 500+ Kittery families in need. The Fabulous Find is located at 122 State Road (US Route 1) in Kittery.

The Fabulous Find board members Anne Bryer and Marcye Philbrook, African Burying Ground Committee chair Vernis Jackson, Fabulous Find board members Phyllis Welch and Anne Hunter.