EAST LOS ANGELES : Thrift Shop Benefits People With AIDS

A new thrift shop whose proceeds will go to help people with HIV and AIDS has opened under an Art Deco tower on Whittier Boulevard.

The 10,000-square-foot store, called Out of the Closet, at 5136 E. Whittier Blvd. is the fourth thrift shop to be opened by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The foundation provides medical and hospice services for people with HIV and AIDS regardless of their ability to pay, said spokesman Keith Malone.

“The thrift stores allow us to make sure that we can provide that care to anyone,” Malone said.

The goal of the store was one reason Margaret Villalobos and her daughter Lorraine Pacheco shopped there last week. Mostly, though, the pair had come to find bargains at the store and at two other thrifts on the boulevard run by Goodwill and Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

“The clothes are priced a little high but the appliances are good,” Villalobos said, holding half a dozen flannel shirts she was buying for herself and family members.

Pacheco found a good copy of Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” and “The Odyssey of Homer” for $1 each.

In other aisles, clothes were sorted by color, with sweaters selling for $1.99. A pair of men’s blue suede shoes, Size 12, went for $12.99.

Shoppers could select from two tables of record albums, rows of dishes and silverware, luggage and glassware.

There were two sets of chess pieces with medieval figures, a Mickey and Minnie Mouse cookie tin and a pyramid of bottles fitted with Christmas lights.

On another wall were a colorful fish tray and a yellow cappuccino cup with two matching plates.

Store manager Ricardo Alfaro, 23, researched the families who live in the store’s 90022 zip code and found that a high percentage earn $10,000 or below annually, making a strong case for locating the thrift store there.

He believes the store’s mission--to help people with AIDS and HIV--will help increase the awareness of the store and make for loyal customers.

“I think that once we let them know what Out of the Closet does, they’ll be more generous with their purchases,” Alfaro said.

Malone says the Out of the Closet name has a double meaning, both humorous and educational.

“We know that there’s a double meaning with the message,” he said. “There’s the literal, meaning whatever you’ve got in the closet that you don’t want anymore, take it and give it to us. At the same time, it’s also a phrase that’s known in the last 20 years about people being open and honest about their sexual orientation and their relationships.”

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation opened its first thrift shop in 1990 in Atwater Village. Since then, other stores in the Fairfax district and North Hollywood have opened. It plans to open another Out of the Closet in Hollywood in the next two months.

The foundation also runs five clinics and two hospices in the Los Angeles area.