CARRBORO – The PTA Thrift Shop is busy raising funds and building a new center, and recently a local company helped raise funds.

All day Thursday, Carrboro’s Spotted Dog restaurant helped the thrift by donating ten percent of the day’s proceeds to the building campaign.

Barbara Jessie-Black, the executive director of the PTA Thrift Shop, says the new building, which will be on Main St. in Carrboro, will be 27,000 square feet when it is finished. She says it will consist of two buildings, the larger of which take 22,00 square feet of the new space.

“14,000 of it will be our operations, donations as well as retail, and then the school district has leased about 8,000 square feet for their pre-K and Head Start administrative office and some leadership development space,” Jessie-Black said.

She says the construction comes as part of a plan to grow the thrift shop to continue the goals the organization has in mind.

“We decided that we would diversify our business model slightly in order to create more cash flow for our mission, which is to support the Chapel Hill schools’ PTAs,” Jessie-Black said.

While the construction ongoing, the various PTA Thrift Shop locations have stayed open, including the temporary space on West Weaver St. where Carrboro’s Red Hen boutique used to be.

“Most of our business has gone over to our Chapel Hill location, which is going phenomenally well,” Jessie-Black said. “Even though we’ve contracted our business, we’re still getting a lot of support.”

The PTA Thrift Shop held another fundraiser for the building project in late May at the Carolina Club, and so far it has raised about $430,000 of its $1 million goal.

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