Behind the racks of gently used clothing, housewares, and household goods at the Un-Thrift Store in Anaheim sits a nonprofit with roots that go back more than four decades. The Eli Home for Abused Children began in 1983 as a home Bible study group led by Mike and Lorri Galloway, and within eighteen months that small gathering had opened its first shelter for abused and homeless children and their mothers. The organization has since grown into a multi-program agency headquartered at 1175 North East Street in Anaheim, and its thrift operation exists specifically to help fund that mission rather than as a standalone retail venture, which is why longtime supporters refer to it by the branded name Un-Thrift Store rather than a generic secondhand shop.
What keeps the shelves stocked is the same kind of everyday donated merchandise found at most community thrift stores: clothing, shoes, small furniture, kitchenware, toys, and household miscellany dropped off by Orange County donors who know their gently used items will be resold to support a local cause rather than shipped off to a distant corporate office. Shoppers browsing the racks are, in effect, helping underwrite three distinct programs the Eli Home runs concurrently: the core Shelter Program serving children under twelve alongside their mothers with 24-hour staffing, parenting classes, counseling, and job training; the East Street Community Renewal Initiative, which layers in English classes, financial literacy courses, nutrition education, and summer camps for the surrounding neighborhood; and the Children and Recovering Parents program, launched in September 2019 to house homeless children together with mothers working through substance use recovery, a pairing the organization says is uncommon among Orange County shelters.
The numbers behind that work are part of what makes the Un-Thrift Store’s mission concrete rather than abstract. Since 1983, the Eli Home reports having served more than 45,569 children and family members, and it now supports over 1,000 families each year through its combined shelter and community programs. A dollar spent on a secondhand sweater or a used lamp at the Anaheim store is, by the organization’s own accounting, a dollar that flows back into that same continuum of shelter, counseling, and job training rather than disappearing into unrelated overhead. The store’s East Street address puts it within the same stretch of Anaheim where the shelter and its community renewal programs are based, making a shopping trip there feel less like an errand and more like a visit to the neighborhood the donations directly support.
For bargain hunters, that combination of everyday secondhand finds and a traceable local mission is the real differentiator. In one sentence: the Un-Thrift Store in Anaheim is the retail arm of the Eli Home for Abused Children, a faith-based nonprofit operating since 1983, and every purchase of its donated clothing, furniture, and household goods helps fund shelter, counseling, and family support programs for homeless and abused children and mothers in Orange County.
