The new location doubles retail space and adds a Job Connection Center, which helps people develop their work skills

Ashland.news staff report

Ashland has a new Goodwill Retail Store that doubles the previous store’s sales space and includes a Job Connection, a center that helps people in the community develop and upgrade their work skills.

A throng of shoppers lined up for the store’s opening Thursday at 777 E. Jefferson Ave., less than a mile from the old store on Tolman Creek Road. The old store is now closed.

Construction of the all-new store began in March, said Rebecca McNamee, director of marketing and communications for Southern Oregon Goodwill. She said the new store provides “more than double the retail space” of the old store.

Plus, “It’s going to more than triple the parking spaces. We only had nine at the old location. We have 30 here,” McNamee said.

“The biggest thing we’re excited about is having a Job Connection in Ashland again,” she said. The center provides coaching and training for people to build their job skills, develop their resumes and get themselves ready to work.

“Our whole mission is enabling employment,” McNamee said. “This store is phenomenal and great and beautiful.” But, she said, Goodwill is even more excited about the Job Connection.

“The whole point of Goodwill is to support people in finding and maintaining independent employment,” said Alicia Preston, vice president of workforce development for Southern Oregon Goodwill. “We do that through our Job Connection centers.”

Previously, the Ashland Goodwill store sent people to the Job Connection in Medford some of their training. Having a center in-house will allow the Ashland store offer more internships.

The new Job Connection includes a learning lab and computers, plus trainers to help people enter or move up in the workforce, Preston said.

Goodwill offers paid eight-week internships. Preston said the interns get training in job skills such as customer service, conflict management, how to apply for work and how to handle a job interview.

In addition, she said, “We help people to connect to resources in the community, for housing, for transportation or any of those stabilizing factors that are really important.”

Goodwill shoppers in Ashland, meanwhile, get a bigger, brighter store, open just in time for holiday shopping.

To connect with Southern Oregon Goodwill go to sogoodwill.org.

Ashland news photographer Bob Palermini and copy editor Jim Coleman contributed to this report. Email Ashland.news at news@ashland.news.