The grand opening and ribbon cutting for Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma’s new Ponca City location was held on Thursday, May 4. Located at 2808 N. 14th Street, this will be the first Goodwill location for the area, with customers formerly having to drive as far as Stillwater to reach the closest store.

“We are tremendously excited to be in Ponca City. We think it’s a great place for us as a store and a non-profit, but also for the community, because we’re a workforce development organization,” said Jim T. Priest, J.D., President and Chief Encouragement Officer with Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma. “Our mission is to help people overcome challenges to employment, and that is what we want to do in Ponca City. Selling things in the story is important because it is the fuel that fuels our mission of helping people overcome challenges. And there are a lot of challenges in the workplace today. So we want to help out Ponca City and the surrounding areas as much as we can.”

The ribbon cutting ceremony began at 9 am, where a long line was already awaiting the grand opening with some people there as early as 5 am, as the first 100 people through the door received 10% off. Additionally, there were Goodwill Goodie Bags for the first 40 customers, light refreshments, and photo opportunities with Lucas Ross, AKA “Good Will.”

“I was overwhelmed, I figured we would have some people in line, maybe 20. And we had maybe 150, it was very exciting to see that much enthusiasm,” said Priest.

Priest joined Goodwill three years ago and wanted to make sure they grew into areas that were underserved or unserved by them. They identified Ponca City as as a vital hub in the northern part of Oklahoma.

“We’ve been in Oklahoma City, the Metro, and some cities outside of Oklahoma City, but he had not been this far north,” said Priest. “And we found a great receptive community, the government, the chamber, the shoppers, have all been very excited.”

The store will be open on Monday to Saturday from 9 am to 9 pm, and on Sundays from 12 pm to 6 pm.