At 13910 45th Ave NE in Marysville, the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society runs one of its network of thrift shops serving the Pacific Northwest’s Navy and Marine Corps community, an outgrowth of a national charitable society that has supported sailors, Marines, and their families since 1904. Unlike a typical secondhand store built purely around retail, this thrift shop exists as an arm of a much larger nonprofit mission: NMCRS provides interest free loans, grants, budget counseling, and other financial assistance to service members and their families facing hardship, and the thrift shop both raises funds for that work and gives military families an affordable place to shop, especially useful during the frequent moves and tight paychecks that come with active duty life.
The shop’s racks and shelves carry a broad mix typical of a well stocked general thrift store: clothing and accessories, home decor and housewares, books, and ephemera, along with the rotating donated goods any base community generates as families move on to new duty stations and clear out what they no longer need. Because Whidbey Island, Naval Station Everett, and Marysville itself sit within a tight radius of Navy and Marine families, donations tend to reflect that cycle of relocation, meaning the sales floor changes constantly and frequent visits can turn up different finds each week.
What distinguishes this store from a commercial resale shop is its volunteer backbone. NMCRS reports that roughly 90 percent of its overall workforce is made up of volunteers, and its thrift shops are a visible example of that model in action: volunteers who bring retail merchandising and customer service experience staff the floor, price donations, and help customers find what they need, describing the work as a meaningful way to give back and build community with fellow service families. Every dollar the shop brings in is directed back into the society’s support services rather than to outside shareholders or a private owner, so a routine purchase of secondhand clothing or housewares in Marysville doubles as a small contribution to interest free loans and emergency assistance for a Navy or Marine family elsewhere in the fleet.
For shoppers outside the military community, the appeal is straightforward: affordable, frequently refreshed secondhand clothing, housewares, books, and home goods in a no frills setting, with the added knowledge that the proceeds fund a more than century old charitable mission rather than ordinary retail profit. Marysville itself sits along the I 5 corridor north of Everett, close enough to Naval Station Everett and the broader Puget Sound naval community that the shop draws both active duty families and civilian bargain hunters who value knowing where their money goes after checkout.
Because the thrift shop is staffed almost entirely by volunteers rather than paid retail employees, overhead stays low, which in turn means more of every sale can flow back into NMCRS programs like emergency rent and utility assistance, vehicle repair grants, and educational aid for military children, rather than being absorbed by payroll. That structure is part of what makes a stop here feel different from an ordinary secondhand store even before a shopper reaches the checkout counter. In short, the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society Thrift Shop in Marysville is a volunteer run secondhand store whose sales directly fund financial relief for Navy and Marine Corps families in need.
