On Main Street in the small Oneida County village of Boonville, a not-for-profit thrift shop has been quietly clothing families and stocking food pantry shelves since March 19, 1990. Matthew’s Place Thrift Store and Food Pantry takes its name and its mission directly from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25, verses 35 and 36, a passage about feeding the hungry, clothing the stranger, and caring for those in need, and the organization has built more than three decades of continuous service around that founding principle. What started as a simple, inexpensive source of clothing and household goods for the Boonville area has grown considerably in scope, and today the shop’s shelves hold everything from everyday housewares to genuine vintage collectibles and antiques alongside its original clothing racks.
The shop is located at 165 Main Street and is open Wednesday through Saturday, generally from mid-morning into early afternoon, a schedule that lets working families and retirees alike fit a visit into their week without needing to plan around a single weekend rush. Earnings from thrift store sales fund far more than the shop’s own operating costs: proceeds go directly toward purchasing perishable food items for the attached food pantry and toward community outreach programs aimed at children, veterans, and underprivileged residents of the Boonville area, meaning every purchase at the register has a direct, traceable path back into the community.
Inventory at Matthew’s Place ranges widely and changes constantly as new donations arrive. Shoppers can browse framed artwork spanning watercolors, oils, and prints, designer purses from labels including Michael Kors, Coach, Kate Spade, Ralph Lauren, and Vera Bradley, everyday and finer jewelry, full sets of tableware and glassware for setting a table, and an especially deep selection of collectible milk glass from makers such as Fenton, Westmoreland, Indiana Glass, and Anchor Hocking’s Fire-King line. Book sections cover romance, mystery, cookbooks, local history, and children’s titles, while a crafts area stocks fabric, yarn, and sewing notions for hobbyists. Sporting goods rotate with the seasons, from golf clubs and baseball gloves in summer to skiing and snowmobile gear in winter. Past featured items have included a complete factory-sealed Weapons of War military history DVD set, a 1997 Mattel Happy Holidays Special Edition Barbie marking the tenth anniversary of the Holiday Barbie line, and a pair of vintage eyeglasses from the Krystol Optical Company of Utica still in their original early-twentieth-century mailing box, a small window into the kind of genuinely unusual finds that turn up on the sales floor.
That breadth, spanning designer accessories to niche collectibles alongside its core charitable clothing mission, sets Matthew’s Place apart from a typical small-town donation bin, giving both bargain shoppers and collectors reason to make Main Street a regular stop. More than three decades after opening, Matthew’s Place Thrift Store and Food Pantry remains a Boonville institution where every purchase directly funds food pantry supplies and community outreach for the village’s children, veterans, and families in need.
