Editor’s Note: The Tiftarea is home to many charities and non-profits making a positive impact on our community. With the holiday season here, we want to highlight a handful of them and encourage our readers to consider them in their end-of-year giving. This is the third part of our Season of Giving series.

TIFTON — The Bird’s Nest Thrift Store, located at 5 Old Brookfield Road E., was set up to help fund the Tiftarea House of Hope, which is the homeless shelter for women and children in the Tift area.

Rosemary Hightower, who helped found the Tiftarea House of Hope, said that the store is completely reliant on the generosity of local people who donate items to sell.

Hightower said that Tiftarea House of Hope was founded to meet a need for shelter for women and children.

She has asked to be on the board for Brother Charlie’s in the past and said that they have a great program for men, but that they don’t accept women.

“And I just met so many homeless women,” she said.

Hightower said that she worked with Martine Hill of The Bridge of Tiftarea to start the shelter.

“It’s a faith-based (organization), so we can’t get a lot of grants,” she said. “So we depend on donations and we have fundraisers.

“It’s faith-based and we want to keep it that way.”

The building the store is housed in was given to the organization by New River Baptist Church.

“We would not be here is it wasn’t for New River Church,” she said. “There’s no way with our little budget we could afford all this.”

In addition to the store, they have the Buckets of Hope raffle, Boston butt sales and a dinner theatre.

“We depend on the Lord and donations,” she said.

The store has been open for about a year and all of the proceeds go towards paying the bills for the shelter. They are currently having a 75 percent off sale to try and get more people to come out and support the store and shelter.

They carry household items, clothing, books, toys and furniture that people have donated.

There is a small staff of volunteers who runs the register, picks up donations and delivers purchases, stocks items and keeps the store running.

“It’s a fun thing and we know that we’re helping people,” Hightower said.

She also said that they want to help the women turn their lives around by providing them a safe place to stay until they get back on their feet and “understand Biblical principles.”

“We try to help them,” she said. “That’s all we can do.”

The store hours are Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. For more information or to volunteer contact The Bridge of Tiftarea at (229) 396-5990.

Follow Eve Guevara on Twitter @EveGuevaraTTG.