Harvest Thrift, offshoot of Awaken The Harvest Ministries, serves Lebanon city

Harvest Thrift opened its doors to the Lebanon community on Saturday, Oct. 19, and the community has been responding positively since.

Rebekah “Becky” Weaver, founder of Harvest Thrift, spoke with LebTown about the offshoot of Awaken The Harvest Ministries, which she co-founded with her mother, Elaine Mason.

Weaver was raised in poverty, living with her family out of their cars and squatting in vacant residences. During her youth, Weaver moved from the south to Lebanon city — specifically, 10th and Lehman streets — while her parents were going through a divorce. Weaver then moved to Palmyra for a short time before returning to the city — specifically, 10th and Chestnut streets — where she raised her eldest daughter.

“I have a lot of years here in the city, and it’s what I consider home,” Weaver, now-mother of four and grandmother of two, said.

Weaver attended the Lebanon County Career & Technology Center to become a licensed practical nurse. She then attended HACC-Lebanon and HACC-Harrisburg to earn prerequisites toward becoming a registered nurse. She went on to graduate as an RN from the Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences, which has since merged into Saint Joseph’s University.

Even before starting nursing school, Weaver worked at WellSpan Good Samaritan Hospital, and after finishing nursing school, she worked at Cedar Haven Healthcare Center.

“Growing up, I’ve always had this desire [to give back] but got caught up with life and my own, raising my kids and having a career,” Weaver said. “And a few years ago, I looked at mom, and I was like, ‘I really want to give back. Where do we even start?'”

Because of her experience with food insecurity as a girl, Weaver decided to pursue 501(c)(3) nonprofit status through Awaken The Harvest Ministries and the permits required to give back to her community by feeding its hungry community members.

During the summer of 2023, Weaver and her mother gave away bagged lunches to community members in city parks. “And summer started to come to a wind,” Weaver said. “And we said, ‘Well, we don’t want to stop doing this; this is awesome.'”

Later that year, they shifted to giving away hot breakfast sandwiches in the parking lot area near the bus station at North 7th and Willow streets every other Sunday. Along with the hot breakfast, they started giving away other food items, hygiene products, sleeping bags, pillows and blankets, and coats and other winter essentials to the local unhoused community.

“And then, the donations started pouring in. So, we were looking for a place to store all the donations that we were getting,” Weaver said. “Here at 701 Cumberland St., there was a space available, and we were renting that out for our donations. And then, that turned into this larger space downstairs that came available [about six months later].”

Harvest Thrift has been renting its space at 701 Cumberland St., Suite 103, Lebanon, since September 2024. It is open to the public on Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Weaver said there are no stairs to enter or exit the thrift shop.

There is on-street parking along the building. There is also a parking lot with some reserved spaces and some unreserved spaces to the rear of the building. In addition, there is a city parking lot with free two-hour spaces also to the rear of the building.

Harvest Thrift is constantly offering items for free in the front area of the thrift shop, with it being a rack of coats at the time of the interview. Harvest Thrift also allows struggling community members to shop for what they need at the thrift shop for free. “I want to bless people as much as we possibly, possibly can,” Weaver told LebTown.

As for ways that interested Lebanon Countians can get involved with the entirely volunteer-run organizations, Weaver said, “We can always use volunteers, especially with the sorting process with all the donations that are coming in.”

Harvest Thrift currently has eight volunteers who regularly help sort donations at the thrift shop on Wednesdays, and Awaken The Harvest Ministries has 10 to 12 volunteers who regularly help serve hot breakfast every other Sunday in the thrift shop’s rear parking lot.

“We literally set up a full-on mobile kitchen, you could say, outside. We take out griddles. We take out warmers. And we literally make hot breakfast on the spot,” Weaver said. “We also have partners in this area.”

Weaver said that Panera donates take-out dishes to Awaken The Harvest Ministries once a week. The nonprofit also provides hot coffee, plates, silverware, and cups, as well as home goods that it has selected to donate from Harvest Thrift to community members.

Other community partnerships between Awaken The Harvest Ministries and Harvest Thrift include Lebanon County Christian Ministries, Blessings of Hope, Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, Northern Lebanon Clothing Closet, Gravel Hill United Methodist Church, Palm Lutheran Church, and other local churches.

“I love seeing [these community partnerships] because we’re all here for one purpose, and that’s to help our community and support our community,” Weaver said. “We’re not all trying to just do it ourselves. You can accomplish so much more when you come together and help each other out.”

Harvest Thrift is always accepting donations, including donations for North Carolina hurricane survivors. “Every donation that comes through Harvest Thrift goes to support the ministry 100%,” Weaver said. It uses monetary donations — and proceeds from the thrift shop — to pay rent and purchase food and specific items to give away to community members in need.

“If we get a call from a church or a local partnership ministry that has a person in need. If we don’t have that item here, we will actually go purchase it with the ministry money,” she explained. “So, let’s say a child needs a size 10 shoe, we don’t have it, we will actually go purchase it ourselves.”

In addition, Harvest Thrift is currently searching for a facility in Lebanon to set up a clothing closet for community members to shop for what they need for free during its open hours.

“We would certainly love that because right now, we’re … packing it up and hauling it out and having people go through what they can on Sundays when we’re feeding,” Weaver said. “So, a nice, solid place that people can come in and get what they need, that would be wonderful.”