The Joseph Johns Story – Where It All Started

The man behind the creation of the Chatham SSVP store was Joseph Johns.
His vision, his passion to serve those in need,
not only inspired the creation of the Chatham store,
but throughout many communities within Kent County.
Joseph Johns joined the Society in the late 1950’s at the St. Ursula’s Parish in Chatham.
As a child he was exposed to charitable works from his parents who practiced giving charity.
Joseph along with three to five members of the parish would meet weekly after the
12 o’clock mass and were given names of families in distress by the pastor.
Every Sunday they would go in pairs to visit a family and help them with a
voucher for their needs of clothing, furniture and food.
It bothered Joseph that in a city and county of over 100,000 people,
that there was a weak effort to serve our fellow people as God requested us to do.
This inspired him to set his sights on developing a program to serve all the people in the community.

His vision was to have a store in every city and village.
Money would be a problem for the creation of the program.
Joseph was turned down by many of our members who said he would never succeed
in paying for a new building. However, he was a successful businessman.
Joseph paid off all his business and university education debts, praising God for his endeavors

Joseph attended SSVP conventions in the USA Stores program in St Louis and New Orleans.  These visits helped him plan for the opening and operating of the SSVP stores.  In 1957, he met with his Particular Council in the basement of Blessed Sacrament Church. There he was authorized to proceed with the opening of a new store in Chatham.  The location was very important. A large lot was found on King Street East,in a predominantly poor neighborhood. The owner of the land was the Mayor of Chatham, who was also involved with the Society. After some tough negotiations the land was given to the Society for one dollar.  

Joseph solicited the help from an architect to develop a blueprint for a new bright modern store.  Estimates for the store were $20,000. Joseph approached a friend to provide brick layer trade people.  He then found 15 people who would sign a note for $1,000 each so the bank would loan the store money to erect the new building.  All the notes were paid off in four years.

A program to receive clothing and furniture was planned and executed.  Once donations started to be received, clerks were hired and the rest of the staff was volunteers.  A baling machine was built at Joseph’s factory at a cost of $3,000.  At that time similar baling machines were sold for $12,000. (The original baling machine is still in use today.)  Next an addition to the building was made after the initial banks loans were paid off.  The addition was to accommodate the Baling machine and provide space for sorting and storage of clothing and furniture. At this time Drop Boxes were placed at churches within Kent County which generated large quantities of clothing.