Inside the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society thrift shop at NAS Pensacola, there are bargains everywhere.
Walk through the front door, and there is a small reception area with a cash register. To the right, a hallway leads to shelves of secondhand books. Beyond that is a large room filled with housewares, artwork, and home decor.
To the left is another large room packed with clothing racks. Smaller rooms nearby hold military uniforms that have been cleaned, pressed, sorted, and prepared for their next owner.
There is also a section called The Boutique, where shoppers can find formal dresses.
On the morning I visited, nearly a dozen volunteers were working throughout the store.
One of them is Audrey Faragher, who has volunteered here since 2024, and now leads the shop. She first came through the door as a donor after retiring. Then she came back and kept coming back.
“I really believe in the mission,” Faragher said. “I really do. I’m not military, but ever since we got to Pensacola, we’ve done everything we can to support NAS. And I thought, ‘this is a perfect thing for me.’”
Faragher has watched thousands of people come through the shop. She says the donations tell stories about military families moving from one place to another.
One family gives something up. Another family finds it.
“My kids are growing up,” Faragher said. “I can give to your kids because they’re younger. My daughter changed the decor of her bedroom, so we don’t need the princess stuff anymore. That’s what those donations tell me. Just passing it on.”
That idea of passing something along runs through the shop.
Faragher remembers a sailor who came in looking for an iron. The shop didn’t have one, so she told him to keep checking back.
He did. And he got his iron.
“He would just keep popping in,” she said. “And he, until he left the station, he would come in almost every week to see what was going on.”
There are practical savings here, too.
Faith Carter has volunteered at the shop for three years. She oversees the military uniforms.
Carter had no military experience when she arrived. But she asked enough questions that a Navy lieutenant commander trained her before leaving the area.
Now Carter checks donated uniforms to make sure they are current, clean, and suitable for service members.
“I just like helping them,” Carter said. “Help them save money and encourage them and just getting to know them.”
The savings can be substantial. Carter pointed to a camouflage parka hanging from a top rail. It would cost $215 new.
“See that parka?” she asked. “That’s $215. We sell it for $35 here.”
A pair of uniform trousers that might cost $50 to more than $100 new can be sold for $5 at the thrift shop.
An officer’s jacket that can cost more than $200 can be $25.
For someone just beginning a military career, those numbers can matter.
Victoria Franklin is still active-duty Navy. She remembers coming to a Navy thrift shop when she was a young enlisted sailor.
“When you first come from boot camp, you’re scared,” Franklin said. “You don’t know anything. If your parents are not there with you, you kind of have that realization that this is all on me now. And I’m an adult, and clothes cost things. You come here, and you have people, like the volunteers, who are just helpful and so selfless and understanding and patient. And they just show you all your options. Looking at the retail price versus what you actually pay, going from $200 to $30, it just takes so much pressure off your shoulders. Especially if you’re an E-1 like I was, and you’re getting paid peanuts. It feels nice because I was able to come here, and they were able to provide me with what I needed.”
The people who shop here include young sailors fresh from training, military families, retirees, and spouses starting over in a new place.
Nancy Tucker was visiting for the first time when I met her. She and her husband just moved to Pensacola from Georgia. He is a retired Army soldier.
They sold most of what they owned before the move. Tucker was looking around for things to help build a new home.
“Thrifting is just such a great way to go,” Tucker said. “And in a military community, when you’re moving a lot, it becomes really easy to have to let go of stuff because, you know, I gotta do this again. It’s a new space and a new place. So if I let go and pass it on to somebody else who can use it for something, then I can build my new spot when I get there.”
The money goes back to military families
The thrift shop is not simply a place to buy secondhand goods.
Money raised there goes back into Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society programs in Pensacola.
Joy Barnes directs those programs. She said the thrift shop generated about $78,000 last year, and that money helps support assistance for service members and families facing emergencies.
“If mom is in the hospital, they look in their bank account and don’t have enough money to get on a flight tonight, that’s when they come into our office,” Barnes said.
Barnes said the organization can sometimes get a service member on a flight the same day or the next morning when there is an emergency.
The shop is one part of that larger system.
“If someone donates something to the thrift shop, we can resell it,” Barnes said. “Sometimes that helps that service member that might need to set up their household to get items cheap. And then that money comes back to help those service members in need, too. So it’s a great cycle of community support.”
Military families face many of the same financial pressures as everyone else. But the military lifestyle, Barnes said, can create additional expenses.
Families may have to pay a first month’s rent and security deposit when they move to a new duty station. They may have to buy groceries and household items again. And more students arriving in Pensacola are married and bringing families with them.
For those families, an entry-level military salary may have to stretch much further.
That became personal for active-duty sailor Anastasia Williams this year.
Williams arrived in Pensacola in January and is currently in Navy training. She began volunteering at the thrift shop this summer.
In February, Williams lost her brother. Her mother lives in Kentucky, and Williams said she sent money home to help her family while dealing with the loss herself.
“People feel like just because when we sign the contract, we get paid a certain amount, but even still, we have bills,” Williams said. “And sometimes emergencies happen where you have to take care of your family, and then that money’s gone.”
Williams received help from the Navy with emergency leave. She said the experience showed her how quickly an unexpected event can change a family’s finances.
But Williams said the thrift shop has provided something different for her.
A place to breathe.
When she volunteers, she sees senior service members and officers who are normally in positions of authority.
Inside the shop, she said, the atmosphere changes.
“When they come in here, they’re so sweet,” Williams said. “I get to wear civilian clothing, but even the volunteers who don’t wear civilian clothing and they’re in their military PTU (physical training uniform) gear, we all get treated like regular people. It helps with your mental. It gives you that mood and that energy that you need to continue through the day.”
Williams said she sometimes does not want to get out of bed. On the day I met her, she had two finals ahead of her.
“Being here, seeing other people, it brightens your mood, and it helps you want to get through the day,” Williams said. “I love being here.”
More than a thrift store
There are also moments at the shop that have nothing to do with financial emergencies.
Lead volunteer Faragher remembers a woman preparing for an Atlantic crossing with her military husband. She needed formal dresses for dinners along the way.
She came into The Boutique with her mother and two children.
“She said, ‘I’m just going to be wearing them one night. And when I get to Spain, I’ll donate them there,’” Faragher said.
There was also a young woman who found a saxophone for her mother.
And the shopper who discovered a pair of ice skates.
Last fall, families were moved from Guantanamo Bay ahead of a hurricane. The timing was close to Halloween.
Faragher was asked to find decorations and costumes. She brought everything she had, including a white sheet.
“The boy wanted it because his brother was a Ghostbuster,” Faragher said. “So he wanted to be the ghost, and I was so happy.”
Sara Griffin oversees volunteer support for the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society’s thrift shops nationwide. She said the Pensacola store has become a valued resource for the local military community.
But when she talks about why these places matter, she doesn’t start with the money.
“For us, our thrift shops are so much more than just about saving money,” Griffin said. “We really feel like it creates a sense of community for military families because they’re helping each other through donations and through shopping and volunteerism. It’s a really amazing way to support each other in the military community by donating those things that we’re not in need of anymore… to that next family who’s looking for that item.”
Griffin has her own thrift shop story. She was shopping for things her sailor needed. People kept asking her where to find things.
She decided she must look like she belonged there. She asked how she could help.
More than a decade later, she is still with the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society.
“It was the thrift shop that brought me to this organization,” Griffin said. “And 15 years later, I’m still here because of the magic of our thrift shop.”
Magic may not be the word most people would expect for a room full of secondhand clothes and household goods.
But after spending a morning there, I understand what Griffin means.
The magic isn’t really in the things. It’s in what happens to them next.
A dress gets another night out on the town. A uniform gets another sailor. A child’s toy gets another child. A curtain helps make a new house feel like home. A five-dollar pair of trousers gives a young sailor one less thing to worry about.
And a donation from one family becomes help for another.
There were more than 7,000 visits to the Pensacola thrift shop in 2025.
Behind those visits are people moving, starting over, stretching a paycheck, searching for something they need or simply looking for something that makes them smile.
And sometimes, according to Williams, they find something else.
A place where, for a little while, the pressures of military life can recede.
“It’s nice to feel like a regular person for even a few hours out of the day,” she said. “It helps.”
