Kaethe Warkentin fled from Ukraine in 1943, eventually receiving help from MCC to resettle in Paraguay. There, she met her husband, John Warkentin, a short-term MCC worker from Hillsboro, Kansas. In 1977, Kaethe helped open Hillsboro (Kansas) Et Cetera Thrift Shop.
At the end of July 1977, Kaethe Warkentin didn’t need a calculator to total up her first month’s profit — just 26 cents remained in the muffin tin she was using as a cash register. But the few coins that remained would not be lonely for long.
By the end of the year, the newly formed Hillsboro Et Cetera Shop would be sending $2,800 every month to fund MCC’s relief, development and peace work around the world — nearly $14,000 adjusted for inflation.
Let’s celebrate the MCC Thrift legacy! In this live, virtual event you’ll hear stories from MCC Thrift’s grassroots beginnings, meet some staff and volunteers, and celebrate the impact that the network has made possible. Please register at thrift.mcc.org/celebrate50. The celebration will be held on Zoom on Nov. 22 at 8 p.m. EDT; 7 p.m. CDT; 6 p.m. MDT and 5 p.m. PDT.Callout text here
Warkentin’s support of MCC didn't come from "out of nowhere." She’d experienced MCC’s work firsthand as a little girl in the 1920s. A devastating famine and political upheavals caused deadly food shortages for Mennonites in Russia (present-day Ukraine).
It was so bad that Warkentin remembers her grandfather mixing ground-up bark and thistles with the small amounts of rye and wheat he’d hidden away for his family’s survival. She never forgot that it was MCC that arrived with bread and soup for her starving family and neighbors all those years ago.
She survived those hardships in Russia, fled the country for Paraguay in 1943, just ahead of the German army’s encroachment. By 1949, she found herself putting down roots in Hillsboro, Kansas, the hometown of her new husband, who she’d met in a Mennonite colony in Paraguay. A natural with languages, by 1960 she was teaching German, Russian and Spanish language at Tabor College in Hillsboro, putting to work the three master’s degrees she’d amassed.
But it was when she retired from teaching in 1977 that her relationship with MCC was significantly reconnected.
Kaethe started collecting clothing donations, hoping to offer a thrifty alternative to buying new clothes for her neighbors while raising some money to fund the organization that had saved her family decades ago. With the support of other Mennonites in the area, she opened the store in July 1977, operating out of the only available real estate in town, the front room of a bowling alley.
Two months later, the shop moved to a larger building, where Warkentin managed the store for one year before retiring. In 1997, the continued success of the shop required it to significantly expand and move to where it stands today, in the heart of Hillsboro.
Since its founding, the Hillsboro Et Cetera shop has supported MCC to the tune of a cumulative $1.4 million. And it all started because of one woman collecting cash in a muffin tin in the front room of a bowling alley.
Kaethe died in 2007 at the age of 91. And though she’s gone, memories of her still live on through her family, including her granddaughter, Abigail Welborn. Those memories encouraged Welborn to give to MCC during the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015.
Remembering her grandmother’s journeys, Welborn researched MCC’s response to people fleeing conflict in Syria and Iraq and decided to give. “I think we often feel a kinship to organizations we have a personal connection with. That’s part of how God uses our stories to motivate what we do.”
Welborn remembers treasured stories of her grandmother’s life on the farm in Ukraine. “It was so foreign to our experience.”
She was shaped by her experiences, though. Welborn remembers hearing how her grandmother would use soup can labels for paper when she was teaching.
“She was thrifty. She’d use the back of everything,” Welborn said. “She was just appalled by the waste in America. She never wasted anything.”
As MCC Thrift celebrates 50 years, stories like Kaethe’s are a reminder that every shop was formed by someone who wanted to make a difference in the world.
