|Photo by Emma Delk| Salvation Army Wheeling Thrift Store Clerk Trina Schneider, left, bags up items while Manager Jacqueline Nice, right, assists customers during National Thrift Store Day.

WHEELING – Customers lined up outside the Salvation Army Wheeling Thrift Store before the store’s opening on Friday to get the best deals during the store’s National Thrift Day quarter sale.

During the sale, almost all items in the store were priced at $0.25 to commemorate the holiday that recognizes thrift stores across the country.

Only two hours into Friday’s sale, Lt. John Lawrence of the Wheeling Salvation Army said 60 customers had purchased “over 1,219 items.” With a great deal of inventory leaving the store, Lawrence noted that the sale provides an opportunity to “clear out all the summer items.”

“On Monday, we’ll have all new items in the store getting ready for the fall,” Lawrence said.

Apart from clearing shelves to make room for fall and winter clothes, Lawrence said the sale also funds other Wheeling Salvation Army programs.

Proceeds from the thrift store help fund the Salvation Army Wheeling Shelter and cover the utility, food and rent assistance the organization provides residents.

“When you shop at one of our thrift stores, you’re not just getting a good deal, you’re also helping your community,” Lawrence said. “What is purchased at the thrift store feeds into everything else we provide.”

With some items in the thrift store costing up to $15 on a typical day, Lawrence said the price decrease would be “great” for some items.

“Even some of our furniture items are down to a quarter,” Lawrence noted. “We try to keep them lower than most of the other thrift stores in the area to be competitive. We want to give our customers and the general public the opportunity to come in and get this at a relatively good price.”

Lawrence added that not only would the thrift store’s regular customers be hunting for good deals on Friday, but the “general population” would also have “extra motivation” to stop in.

“Kids are just getting back to school, so it’s an opportunity for people to come in and buy their kids clothing,” Lawrence said. “There are also people on fixed incomes living paycheck to paycheck, so this is a good opportunity for them to get some of the items in the store at a very cheap price.”

Lawrence added that “all hands are on deck” employee-wise during the sale as the discounts attract so many customers that the line to check out in the store stretches “from the register to the back of the building.”

“Before we opened this morning, there was a line around the front of the building all the way into our parking lot of people waiting to come in,” Lawrence said. “People were sitting in their cars waiting for the doors to open, too. The employees have done a great job today keeping people moving in and out of the store.”