Goodwill damaged, Vets suffer

The smell of a once-smoldering fire filled the back room at the Goodwill store in Union Township, as workers sloshed and waded through the soggy floors, deep with puddles from fire-triggered sprinklers.

Soaked clothes on hangers laid crumpled upon the floor, their racks shoved to the ground in haste. Hundreds of broken glass frames, dishes and figurines crunched underneath workers’ feet as they scooped up what was left of the store.

Through the loud sweepers, sucking up the water, the soft sound of Christmas music rose up through some metal shelving. Somewhere buried underneath the debris, strewn across the 2nd largest Goodwill store in the Tri-State, was a Christmas ornament. It’s one of the few things that was not broken, after vandals broke in and trashed the store, then set fire to the back office.

Early Thursday morning, at approximately 4:05 a.m., the Union Township Communications Center received a fire alarm call at the Goodwill store off Commercial Drive, said Lt. Scott Gaviglia, with the Union Township Police Department.

When emergency crews arrived, a small fire was located and quickly extinguished.

"Why, why, why just tear apart our store?” questioned Ann Walters, Goodwill sales manager, as she pointed to the damage spanning the entire store.

"They knocked over all my shelving. They tried to just break as much as possible—threw over racks of clothes, threw books onto the ground. The sprinkler system went off because of the fire... and what they didn't damage, the water did."

Goodwill workers used power squeegees to sop up the massive amounts of water thrown from the overhead sprinklers, while others utilized handheld rubber squeegees to manage the smaller pools—as they shuffled across the wet floor, water squished through the soles of their industrial-strength, steeled-toed, leather boots.

Standing in the rubble… it’s a mess that Walters could not fathom if she had not seen it for herself.

"It's picking on a non-profit, you know... we're the good guys. [The store] generates a lot of revenue for us. It's gonna hurt and it's gonna hurt bad."

Losing business because of the damage will affect more than her employees and the stores revenue alone, it will take a toll on local Veterans.

"We provide job training and support to over 2,600 disabled individuals and over 400 local Vets."

"It's the lack of revenue needed for our job training for those individuals that we serve and our Vets. Times are tight, they're not getting the federal funding they use to, they depend on us now more than ever."

Around her, employees, who came in to help on their day off, scraped the floors, scooping up broken glass and tossing it into a large, gray cart on wheels for the dumpster—the side read: “Freedom isn’t Free.” Each load dumped into the cart made a loud crash as each piece of glass reached the bottom.

Sixteen managers came from other stores to pitch in, sifting their way through damages not yet determined in dollar signs.

"The store was destroyed from this and we're one big team so we just came out to help work out with each and you know, help clean up this mess," said Matthew D. Fortner, Williamsburg store manager.

While they put the pieces back together, they rely on others' generosity.

"We need the hard goods. We need clothing. I need furniture. I need wares. I need glass... everything," said Walters.

She said, she thinks what the suspects needed was cash.

"They weren't able to get money like they were hoping and I think they were angry, which I don't understand," said Walters of the two men who were arrested Thursday afternoon, after capturing one of their faces on a surveillance video.

Thomas Gafney, 21, and Christopher Fairchild, 21, of Union Township, were and charged with arson, breaking and entering, vandalism and attempted safecracking.

Police said both suspects are former employees of Goodwill.

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