Big Bend Episcopal Mission
Rev. Michael Wallens
bigbendepiscopal@gmail.com
(432) 837-4133
Otra Vez Thrift Store
Clothing and many other useful items
Regular hours
We're open 10-1 every Wednesday and 1st and 3rd Saturdays. Watch for earlier hours in the spring. Closed the month of June.
Otra Vez Thrift Store is located on Hwy 118 just as you are coming in Study Butte (Terlingua) from the north and is an outreach of the congregations in that area. Run by a faithful group of volunteers, this mission work provides clothing and household items to area residents at low cost or free. They have a backpack program to offer school clothing and supplies to children in the fall.
Because of a generous grant from the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, the physical facilities of the store were doubled in 2014, a water catchment system and a bathroom have been added.
Wish list for Otra Vez:
Children's Clothing
Adult clothing
Clean & functioning household items
Child's backpacks
Otra Vez Thrift Store Story
A visit with Volunteers by The Rev. Kay Jennings
On Monday February 13, 2017, Walt and I joined the Otra Vez volunteers for their “Christmas” get together in the resort dining room. The two meals opened up the history of the store in ways new to me. The volunteers that were at lunch were Sharon Suprenant, Marsha Geppert, Berda Polechio, Cathy Nehls, Marsha Moore, Deana Wysocki , and Ruth Jansyn. Not a complete roster but many who have worked with the store since the 1990s. 80s?
Berda remembered when she and her husband first stayed at the RV park at Lajitas. There was a little 2nd hand store with a porch there. It did well and funds that helped renovate the chapel came from that store. The resort reached a point of luxury that surpassed the little store, so Maxine Haislip led a move to Study Butte, where Otra Vez is now. Roger and Ruth Gibson had donated land along Hwy 118 there for the store. It has been enlarged and electrified and has a catchment water system and a bathroom for volunteers now. There continued to be church services at the Lajitas chapel: Episcopal, Catholic, and Baptist. Then the services, for the most part, moved to Terlingua to Santa Ines. Fr. Mel and Elaine Pontine and Judy Burgess served as priests at various times at Lajitas and along the border. The volunteers with the store kept coming together to do the work and to share lives with each other. And they still do. They come from all the communities of South Brewster County. It is great to spend time with them and hear bits of the story. The store has provided much more than income. It has been a place where people can find what they need and to share what they don’t need. And it is not languishing. The store should expand with more storage and provide larger items than possible before.
We had a great lunch looking out across the golf course, past the trees along the Rio Grande, to Mexico. There have been border closings and political changes but it is good to know that people who come together as volunteers continue a tradition of providing a needed service. They just get together and get to work. It is an honor to be a part of their tradition.
