South Deerfield’s Giving Circle Thrift Shop to close

Shane Saunders and Sue Pratt go over merchandise at the Giving Circle Thrift Shop in South Deerfield in 2019. Following Pratt’s death in May after a battle with cancer, the Giving Circle Thrift Shop is closing.

Shane Saunders and Sue Pratt go over merchandise at the Giving Circle Thrift Shop in South Deerfield in 2019. Following Pratt’s death in May after a battle with cancer, the Giving Circle Thrift Shop is closing. STAFF FILE PHOTO/PAUL FRANZ

By CHRIS LARABEE

Staff Writer

Published: 06-19-2025 10:51 AM

SOUTH DEERFIELD — The Giving Circle Thrift Shop at 3 Sugarloaf St. will close at the end of the month and is offering a closing sale, as it tries to empty its inventory.

The thrift shop with the unique twist of using sales proceeds to support caregivers is closing following the May death of Sue Pratt, executive director of The Care Collaborative, who had been battling cancer. The Care Collaborative is a nonprofit dedicated to training and supporting caregivers and it ran the thrift store.

Jill Predmore, a member of The Care Collaborative’s board of directors, said the board made the difficult decision to close the store on June 2. The shop’s Facebook page said the closure was the “best next step, due to the debts we have incurred and an inability to manage the shop at this time.”

“The thrift shop really did become a hub for community and people loved it,” Predmore said. “With the thrift shop closing, it’s a testament to Sue that the staff … kept that going when she was no longer in the driver’s seat. Just on blind faith and in homage to her, [they] would just show up and keep the shop open.”

A champion of caregivers, Pratt, herself a former caregiver, founded The Care Collaborative, known then as the Tripp Memorial Foundation, in 2001 with the goal of supporting, advocating for and training home health care workers. In her teens, Pratt began working in rest homes as an aide and then later as an art therapist. From there, she spent more than a decade training certified nursing assistants and home health aides in partnership with Greenfield Community College, her obituary states.

In 2018, she founded Giving Circle Thrift Shop in an effort to raise awareness about the plight of home health care workers while also subsidizing training programs using money raised from sales. The store was originally located at 55B North Main St. before moving to Sugarloaf Street.

“Our mission is to improve the quality of life of elders and caregivers,” Pratt said in March 2018. “Direct caregivers work below the poverty line. They work hard for little compensation.”

Predmore said Pratt achieved that vision through both The Care Collaborative and the Giving Circle Thrift Shop.

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“Her main focus when she opened the thrift shop was to support caregivers. … What she wanted to do was give them a respite, to give them visibility, to give them a sense of pride in what they do,” Predmore said. “She had a huge heart and she had such an amazing view of the world. … She loved her work, she was passionate about it.”

A celebration of Pratt’s life will be held on Saturday, June 28, at 1 p.m. at the New England Peace Pagoda, 100 Cave Hill Road in Leverett. A potluck will follow.

As the Giving Circle Thrift Shop approaches its closure date, it is holding a flash sale with all items at least 50% off. With volunteers running the operation, it will be open the final two Saturdays of the month from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will offer varying other open hours on different days until the end of June.

Up-to-date information can be found on the Giving Circle Thrift Shop’s Facebook page at Facebook.com/GivingCircleThriftShop.

“Everyone is doing it as a volunteer,” Predmore said. “We can do this as a final goodbye to Sue.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.