FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (March 22, 2012) -- The Post Thrift Shop has been a Fort Meade institution for at least 60 years.
Kay Crawford has volunteered at the shop for half that time.
"I like to help people," said Crawford, a Severn resident. "The staff became like my family."
For the past eight years, Crawford's husband, Roger, has volunteered alongside her.
"Glad we can do it," said Roger Crawford, a former mail carrier for the Fort Meade Post Office.
The Enlisted Spouses Club oversees the Thrift Shop, which is located in Building 2206 at the corner of First and Chisholm avenues.
The shop sells new and secondhand items at discount prices. It is open to the general public; military identification is not necessary to make purchases.
Consignments, however, are only available by appointment to military ID cardholders.
Sixty percent of the shop's merchandise is clothing for children and adults. The stock also includes military uniforms, housewares, small electronics, sporting gear, camping gear, pet supplies and a wide variety of books.
Jennifer Scales, managing editor at The Frontline, the military newspaper at Fort Stewart, Ga., said she shops at the Thrift Shop whenever she is in the area.
"I like the style of the clothes, and the merchandise is affordable," Scales said as she looked through a selection of blouses.
Retired 1st Sgt. Jesse Diaz, and his wife, Arosa, searched for housewares after a recent move from Arizona to Odenton.
"I think it's nice," Diaz said of the shop. "The prices are comparable to other thrift stores."
All profits generated by sales are put back into the Fort Meade community through scholarships for military spouses and children, welfare grants and charitable donations.
In the past year, the club has awarded $14,000 in scholarships to military children and an additional $8,000 in scholarships to military spouses, according to the ESC website.
The Crawfords are among the eight volunteers who help run the shop. Kay Crawford works in the clearance room organizing reduced-price items. Roger Crawford repairs and cleans merchandise for sale.
Other volunteers help with stocking, pricing and consignments.
Trenda Quinn, president of the Thrift Shop Council, which oversees the shop and sets its policy, said the dedication of the Crawfords is exceptional.
"They are wonderful," Quinn said. "We can always depend on them. They take it very seriously. They'll do anything you ask."
This year, the Thrift Shop Council nominated the Crawfords for Fort Meade's Volunteer of the Year award in the family category.
Kay Crawford, who is not a member of ESC, said she started volunteering when her son, Roger Crawford Jr., was a child and attended school.
"I had the time," she said, noting that the family lived in Odenton at the time.
Kay Crawford said she likes organizing and that working in the clearance room "is just like housework."
Roger Crawford became a volunteer when he learned that the staff "needed a guy to help."
In addition to making repairs to items and cleaning them, Crawford also transports unsold merchandise to Goodwill and the Salvation Army.
"It's in your heart to help somebody," he said.
Both have roots at Fort Meade.
Roger Crawford's grandfather, Charles Reigle, owned farm land off post that the Army rented in 1917 for $15 a month.
His grandparents, Charles and Mary Reigle, and several aunts and uncles are buried in Fort Meade's Bethel Cemetery.
Kay Crawford's father, Samuel Chalfant, worked as the assistant post transportation officer at Fort Meade from the late 1950s to 1968.
Roger Crawford was a staff sergeant in the Army Reserve when he began working as a mail carrier at the Fort Meade Post Office in 1960. He was recalled to active duty in 1961 and sent to Fort Eustis, Va. He returned home a year later after his unit was deactivated and resumed working at the post office before retiring in 1992.
The couple said they don't intend to stop volunteering at the Thrift Shop any time soon.
"We'll go as long as our health holds up," Roger Crawford said.
Editor's note: The Post Thrift Shop is open Tuesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with consignments from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with consignments by appointment only; and the first Saturday of the month from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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