BOISE, Idaho — A new thrift store in Boise is turning secondhand shopping into life-saving work.
Impact Thrift, set to open in the coming weeks, is a subsidiary of Chazak Rescue, a nonprofit that trains volunteers for search and rescue missions around the world.
The store will give all profits to Chazak Rescue to help fund training and missions.
"The nonprofit trains teams of people with specialized first responder skills and deploys them to major natural disasters, war zones," Robert Weaver, manager of Impact said. “Chazak rescue is all about helping people who don't have hope, those who are in their worst hour."
Chazak Rescue, a Christian nonprofit based in Pennsylvania, specializes in disaster response and humanitarian aid.
Its teams are deployed to natural disaster zones, war-torn areas, and other high-risk regions of the world.
The nonprofit provides training in technical skills like swift water rescue and rope rescue, as well as soft skills like leadership and personal development.
"The first year is all about becoming a person that's worth following. The second year, they start getting more into the hard skills, stuff, learning rope rest, technical rope rescue, swift water rescue, willingness, first responder,” Weaver said. "At the end of year two, they end up with an associate's degree.”
Impact Thrift is now the second business in Idaho working to support Chazak Rescue’s global missions.
Deadwood Outfitters, an outdoor adventure company in Cascade, Idaho, has been contributing all proceeds to Chazak Rescue since it was acquired by the organization in 2023.
The outdoor adventure company offers wilderness experiences that surround navigation, hunting, and other survival skills alike.
"We wanted a place that our young people can go and be in the wilderness, learn navigation and wilderness survival skills and living out of their backpacks," Shawn Zimmerman, manager at Deadwood Outfitters, said.
The managers of both Chazak Rescue entities expressed a deep belief in Chazak Rescue’s overall purpose.
"The goal for Chazak Rescue is to go to the places that are the most inaccessible and hardest to get to, and what most people don't hear about," Weaver said. “Basically, the forgotten places in the world."
With Impact Thrift in Boise and Deadwood Outfitters in Cascade, these two independent businesses are giving the opportunity to make a global difference to Idahoans.