Goodwill has taken over the spot the Athena Grand, a local movie theater on East State Street, occupied before its closure in January 2025.
After nearly 20 years in business, the Athena Grand was unable to recover from the effects COVID-19 had on the local theatre, according to a previous report by The Post.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, movie ticket sales plummeted by 81% in 2020 and have been slow to recover, remaining well below the 1.6 billion movie tickets sold in 2002, its peak year.
The Athena Grand also had competition with other local theaters and businesses, such as The Athena Cinema, a local theater owned and operated by OU and located on Court Street, and Movies 10.
On June 25, the new Goodwill held a ribbon-cutting ceremony, where representatives from Goodwill of South Central Ohio, Athens Mayor Steve Patterson and Athens Area Chamber of Commerce gathered with community members to celebrate the opening.
Bill Parker, vice president of community engagement for Goodwill of South Central Ohio, said that the second store offers another convenient location for locals to donate and shop. Parker also said both stores are performing very well.
He also discussed an initiative by Goodwill to increase sustainability.
“I think something that we’d like people to be aware of is our sustainability,” Parker said. “We are a major recycler of electronics and IT products through a project called Dell Reconnect.”
In cooperation with Dell Technologies, the program has “recovered and recycled over 650 million pounds” of used electronics since its launch in 2004, according to a Goodwill of South Central Ohio information packet.
Parker met with Ohio University’s director of sustainability and the mayor of Athens to speak about the possible ways Goodwill can provide free services for people to dispose of unused items.
Along with IT products, Parker highlights most people aren't aware that Goodwill also accepts books to be sold or taken to book recycling, and lithium-ion batteries to be safely stored through Dell Reconnect.
“We also find that when people understand how we work as a nonprofit and what our missions are about, we are finding more and more support because awareness is real important to people,” Parker said.
The Athens Area Chamber of Commerce congratulated Goodwill of South Central Ohio for their new store location in a post via Facebook on opening day. The post sparked over 200 comments, some expressing locals' frustrations with the new store.
Some users expressed distaste for the corporation and shopping options within the area. “How about a little more variety of shopping experiences in this community?” one commenter wrote.
The only Yelp review of the new store points out the high prices in comparison to the chain’s other thrift stores, stating, “Give the students a break!”
In a report by Bank of America, it found that second-hand shopping transactions are up 22% from a year ago. Another report from ThredUp, an online consignment shop, found revenue in the second-hand apparel market has doubled from 2020 to 2025, mostly from young shoppers.
As COVID-19 brought on higher rates of online shopping, consumers turned to online resale platforms, such as Depop and ThredUp, to make their second-hand purchases, further feeding into the second-hand apparel market.
ThredUp’s 2026 Resale Report projected that the second-hand apparel market will reach almost $400 billion by 2030, turning shoppers into entrepreneurs. Now, many people go to the thrift store to find economic value rather than use in the clothes, according to Forbes.
Parker does not see this as an issue in Goodwill stores, naming the resale market as a “win-win” because Goodwill made their sale and the buyer was able to make money off of it as well.
However, Goodwill’s ultimate goal is to help those with disadvantages and disabilities, according to Parker.
According to the official Goodwill website, the organization not only provides sustainability through selling donated items, but also funds occupation placement programs.
“Our organization has, what we call, a workforce development team,” Parker said. “They work with people who have had disadvantages, second-chance employment type things for people who have been incarcerated, people with disabilities.”
In the new Athens location, Goodwill will incorporate a space in the store that includes a workforce development representative, who would meet with people in need of a job and help them build skills to find one.
