Byram thrift shop gets a second chance - Westfair Communications

Mindy Levy Salinas, left, and Jheri Ciaccio, co-owners of Second Chances Thrift and Consignment.

The Jewish Family Services Thrift Shop in Byram was to close. The year was 2008.

Call it kismet that the second-hand and consignment store had a long-serving volunteer named Mindy Levy Salinas. She bought the contents of the shop at 103 Mill St. from Jewish Family Services ”” which did not reopen in another location ”” renamed it Second Chances Thrift and Consignment and gave the business, appropriately, a second chance.

“I had worked here as a volunteer for three years,” she said from among the myriad opportunities to re-retail that her store presents. A quick survey revealed a western saddle, jewelry, clothes, tea pots, lamps, art, hats and formal chairs. “When it closed I bought the contents of the store and I made it my own,” she said.

Salinas now has a co-owner, Jheri Ciaccio, who painted the graphic canvas on the wall that reads: “Keep Calm Go Shopping.”

What little extra space is available in the shop Salinas and Ciaccio fill with their evident joie de vivre.

“Everybody and everything deserves a second chance,” Salinas said.