Garage of Blessings is on the move.
The free community thrift store, which currently occupies the bottom half of the Whidbey News-Times building on SE Barrington Drive next to the Oak Harbor Police Department, is relocating to the mall on SW Barlow Street anchored by the town’s movie theater.
Garage of Blessings will occupy the space formerly used by Island Pet Center and the move will put the thrift store in the same complex as Spin Cafe.
The news was publicly announced Monday afternoon on the Garage of Blessings Facebook page:
We have a permanent home!
Big news from the Garage of Blessings: we have officially purchased a new building!
After years of serving our Whidbey Island neighbors from a leased space, we are incredibly excited to share that Garage of Blessings now has a permanent home of our own at: 1381 SW Barlow St., Oak Harbor, WA, 98277.
This moment has been nearly three years in the making.
Through years of planning, preparation, quiet community support and, earlier this year, our public capital campaign, neighbors both internal and external to the Garage rallied around a shared vision: creating a permanent home for Garage of Blessings and investing in the future of neighbors helping neighbors.
To the Knoll family: thank you for your extraordinary generosity and your $200,000 contribution of equity toward the purchase of our new building.
Your generosity was a catalyst for this moment and represents so much more than a gift toward a building — it is an investment in the future of neighbors helping neighbors.
To our neighbors, donors and community partners, including the team at People’s Bank and our real estate agent Jim Woessner, who rallied during our capital campaign: thank you.
Your investments, encouragement, trust and commitment helped create an enduring foundation for the Garage of Blessings and our shared community. We are deeply grateful.
And to our new friends at North Whidbey Hearts & Hammers: thank you for generously sharing your skills and experience with us.
This local nonprofit “helps homeowners experiencing financial or physical challenges through repairs and improvements to residential homes,” and their skilled support is helping us with the building renovations needed to make our new home ready for our community.
This milestone demonstrates the mighty power of a compassionate community — neighbors helping neighbors.
We are deeply grateful, and we are ready for this next chapter! But don’t worry, we’re not interrupting services just yet!
For now, Garage of Blessings will continue normal operations at our current location: 800 SE Barrington Drive, Oak Harbor.
We do not have an official move-in date yet.
There is still work to do, and we want to bring you along for the journey!
We are already looking ahead to a Grand Opening celebration, anticipated for late October, and we’ll share the details as plans come together.
This is a pretty big moment for our little grassroots organization.
A permanent home means greater stability for Garage of Blessings and a place from which we can continue providing tangible resources, basic human care and hope to our neighbors for years to come.
Thank you, Whidbey, for believing in this work and helping make this next chapter possible.
The new location for the Garage of Blessings.
