Oakland HOPE Food Pantry and Thrift Store

"You can find some awesome deals and the staff is very friendly"

"Hey my friends at Oakland HOPE, especially my friend Norma, who supervises the store and organization, the variety of donated items for sale is on par and it's various, no matter if it's clothing and outerwear to the household items and decor, it's very fabulous and the volunteers there are spot-on kind and precise with the store operations. I've had the pleasure to thrift for a couple size 38 everyday vegan friendly pants back in January of last year and also donate a few bags of no longer fitting clothing and mistakenly gifted animal based clothing and other no longer wanted items to them on a few occasions since and I must tell you all and the potential and loyal customers that the donation process is over the top positive! It's super great that for a vegan like myself, there are plenty of mens clothing and outerwear without animal materials. Not so much for shoes. I hope they can one of these days in the future get vegan friendly shoes donated and mark them as vegan friendly or mark the materials that the shoes are made of, so vegans can see and decide easily without having difficulties. If there's anything negative and constructive I would add, is the lack of discounts. I feel the prices on some products especially clothing are right on board.. some of the prices are a bit unrealistically high for what the products are. Understandably and I love, the money goes towards their food pantry and other programs they have to give back to the community, but I wish they have a more discount system like Volunteer of America's or Value World's or even Council Resale in Berkley. Perhaps in a few occasions out of the year, 40 percent or even fifty percent off storewide and/or those percentages on certain types of items would be ideal and positive for the frugal thrifter. Maybe colored tag discounts would be nice as well. Otherwise, it's a 4.1 for me as the rating goes. I'll be back. On a side note, Raphael's Donuts, my nine year old diabetic safe gluten free vegan donut brand very much loves Oakland HOPE and appreciates everything you do. And we greatly love your support of my brand and company and even our ongoing expansion fundraiser as we're still active trying to get closer to our $20000 for our expansion into more retailers. Once of these days when we're done with our fundraiser and when we resume our operations at our rental kitchen down the street and get our donut products restocked in our nine retailers in four states plus secure more deals with more retailers, there's a strong chance we might donate some of our products to the food pantry. I'm sure you have a freezer and refrigerated space which would be ideal for my RD products lol."

"The owner of this place, Norma, is an awful person to work for. This place is beyond shady. After 30+ years in the workforce, Norma is hands down THE worst boss I have ever encountered. She treats her employees like trash and then wonders why the turnover rate is so high or why she can’t get help. They CLAIM to be a Christian organization, but are VERY selective in what parts of the Bible they actually follow themselves. Most of the food they give out is on the brink of rotten. Awful place, do NOT recommend!"

"Very first time ever in this thrift store, as I heard great things. All I can say is that this is absolutely the best kept, cleanest, amazing selection of a thrift store. Great staff (volunteers?). Huge store (was a former large grocery store). And as a bonus, from what I understand, profits from the store feed hundreds of families each week in the local area. Kudos. If you had your eyes closed and someone walked you into this store and then you opened your eyes, you would think you were in a well kept department store."