Inside the lower level of Trinity Presbyterian Church on Route 70 East in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, a small band of volunteers runs Care n’ Share Thrift Shop on a schedule built around church life rather than retail convenience. The shop opens for just a few hours at a time, Tuesdays and Thursdays plus the first Saturday of each month, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and it follows the academic calendar by closing for the summer between June and September rather than running year-round like a commercial store.
Everything on the racks and shelves arrives as a donation from the congregation and the wider Cherry Hill community: clean used clothing for men, women, and children, household items, toys, and books, priced to move quickly and affordably rather than to maximize profit. Trinity’s Presbyterian Women organize and staff the operation, sorting donations that come in during shop hours and after Sunday worship services, which means the inventory reflects whatever the community has recently cleared out of closets and playrooms rather than a curated buying strategy.
What distinguishes Care n’ Share from a typical secondhand store is where the money goes. Every dollar taken in supports local charitable partners rather than the shop itself or any single organization’s overhead: Urban Promise Ministries, the Cherry Hill Food and Outreach Council, IHOC, Volunteers of America, and Caring Hearts all receive support drawn from thrift shop proceeds. For a shopper picking up a used winter coat or a stack of children’s books, the purchase functions as a small, direct act of local giving as much as a bargain.
Cherry Hill sits in Camden County along the Route 70 corridor, a heavily traveled commercial strip lined with shopping centers and restaurants, and Trinity Presbyterian Church’s thrift shop offers a quieter, mission-driven alternative tucked just off that busy road. Because the shop relies entirely on volunteer labor and runs on a limited schedule, it operates more like a community ministry than a business, and the church actively welcomes additional volunteers through its office for anyone interested in helping sort donations or staff the sales floor.
Shoppers who plan around the narrow hours tend to find genuine bargains on everyday basics: children’s clothing that gets outgrown before it wears out, kitchen and household items still in good condition, and a rotating selection of books. Because the shop is not open daily, regulars in the Cherry Hill area often treat it as a periodic stop tied to their week, timing errands around the Tuesday or Thursday morning window rather than dropping in on impulse, and first-Saturday visitors know to arrive early since the morning-only hours move quickly once word gets around about fresh donations.
Care n’ Share Thrift Shop is a volunteer-run secondhand store on the lower level of Trinity Presbyterian Church at 499 Route 70 East in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, selling donated clothing, housewares, toys, and books to fund local charities including Urban Promise Ministries and the Cherry Hill Food and Outreach Council.
