PSNI's Cottage blooming
Panhandle Special Needs Inc., is readying The Cottage, a home and garden shop, for upcoming opening. Posing on the front porch with a new sign painted by Beth Pederson are PSNI volunteer Lois Miller, left, clients Ricky Wall, Kathy Standy, Kyle Horowitz and Melissa Lord, back right. Also pictured is PSNI employee Diane Dennis, center back. (Photo by MARLISA KEYES)
SANDPOINT — Work is picking up at Panhandle Special Needs, Inc., as it prepares to open The Cottage on Saturday.
Not only will the second-hand home decor and garden shop give people a new place to shop, but it will provide work and training opportunities for PSNI’s disabled teen and adult clients, said Diane Dennis, PSNI work services coordinator.
“We’re going to have the clients involved in this,” she said, adding that they are excited to be busy.
Fourteen clients have been busy cleaning and repair items for sale, she said.
Once the facility is open, the clients also will provide janitorial services for the Boyer business.
Although volunteers will staff the facility, which will be open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Dennis also is training her clients to take over those duties when volunteers are not available.
They are learning how to operate the cash register and will train on how to greet customers, she said.
PSNI also is planning to use its greenhouse facility to grow plants that will be use in an on-site garden. Produce from the garden will be sold at the store.
Volunteer Lois Miller, who refused to let a down economy derail PSNI’s mission, came up with the idea to open the shop.
She spent many hours trying to find a location for the shop before realizing the answer was within eyesight of PSNI’s facility — an empty farmhouse with a big porch that a year ago had housed Goodwill’s offices and sits just across the lane.
“We need to be able to keep the doors open,” she said.
Miller convinced Ned Brandenberger of Sandpoint Property Management that the store would be a great fit for the site.
He has bent over backwards to help out, she said.
Now that the store is about to open, Miller has moved into a new role — marketing the store and finding items to sell.
She has commitments from several local stores for surplus goods, including two recliner chair’s from Sandpoint Furniture’s clearance center that already have sold tags on them.
“The prices are reasonable,” she said. “Our goal is to make things affordable.”
The Cottage has several events in the works, including some children’s events that will take place during the Native Plant Society’s annual plant sale May 14-16. A bake sale also is planned for the weekend to be held in conjunction with Lost in the ‘50s.
“It’s been good all the way around,” Miller said.