What is Treasure City Thrift?

At Treasure City, we believe that thrift stores by definition should be thrifty. So we are. By selling items in our store at lower prices than other local retail and thrift shops, we are affordable to all, opening our doors to a truly diverse set of folks. We are a constantly evolving hybrid of many things: Affordable Thrift Store, Junk & Curio Bazaar, Community & Events space, Infoshop, Non-Profit Business, Reuse Center, Really Really Free Market, 25c Sidewalk Sale, and an experiment in Alternative Economics. We also provide space for one of the Yellow Bike Project's Community Bike Shops and the mural on the side of our building, Mount Blackmore, was painted by local teens. You can read the TC mission statement here.

The store is volunteer-run and collectively organized. There are no bosses here! We are supported by donations of time (we love meeting new people) and goods (we always need more furniture, books and men's clothing) from the Austin community. We will pickup large donations on request or after yard/estate sales and house clearances. From the items you donate, we try to reuse and resell as much as possible, and to further divert waste from the landfill, we have a comprehensive recycling program developed with Ecology Action. We hope this project will be an inspiration and model for other groups to replicate, so we have started to document our history. We welcome your questions and comments.

HOW WE BUILD COMMUNITY - SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY

We started this project in 2006 to raise money and material support for small, local grassroots community groups and projects that traditionally have difficulty with funding. Our main financial and material beneficiary is the Inside Books Project, which sends 18,000 free books a year to Texas prisoners. If you are a group that meets these criteria and would like financial, material or promotional support from us or to use the space for events, contact us. You can also read more about the concept of Mutual Aid here.

As a collective, we also believe that the struggles for social justice are not separate, but in fact all linked together in a broader struggle for liberation - an injustice against one is an injustice against all. By networking and supporting diverse groups and people, regardless of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, we all become stronger. For that reason, our space is available for community use outside of business hours. Learn more about using our space. We also have window space for groups we support to promote their events and free blank t-shirts (and other clothing) for screen printing.