Goodwill Week 2025

Goodwill Week 2025

Let’s celebrate the amazing impact of our organization all week long together.

Each year during the first full week of May, communities across the U.S. and Canada celebrate Goodwill Week. From May 4–10, 2025, Goodwill organizations are highlighting their essential role in helping people empower themselves through our employment and education initiatives. This year, we’re looking at our top 5 moments from the last year.

1. Opening Edgemoor

At the end of 2024, our team proudly opened our 20^th retail store at Central & Edgemoor in Wichita, KS. The store was a former Disabled American Veterans retail location but was remodeled to provide an exceptional shopping and donating experience for local residents. As a commitment to Wichita-area veterans, all register round-ups collected from the grand opening through March, 2025 were donated to the Wichita Vet Center. The store has been an awesome addition and has helped fuel our mission to transform lives and communities through the power of education, training, and employment.

2. Opening Opportunity Center

Over the past year, Goodwill Industries of Kansas has focused on growing our mission services throughout Wichita and the state of Kansas. As part of this effort, the GWKS team held the grand opening for our first community-based location, Opportunity Center-Empower, in early 2025. The center, made possible thanks to a strategic partnership between Empower, WSU Tech, and the City of Wichita, will allow GWKS to provide the services needed most in that neighborhood. Not only are we offering GED and ESL classes at this center, we’re also partnering with other organizations to offer services community members need, such as the VITA tax preparation service, an expungement clinic, and a FAFSA night.

3. Andover Renovation

In late February 2025, our GWKS team held a Renovation Celebration for our Andover store. This major renovation included new flooring, enhanced lighting, new racks, new interior and exterior paint, and an exterior digital sign. We partnered with the Andover Area Chamber of Commerce for this celebration that featured a ribbon cutting, brief remarks by Laura Ritterbush, President/CEO of GWKS, and fun prizes and giveaways for the first customers through the door on the day of the celebration. If you haven’t had a chance to stop by the Andover store and see its new look, we highly recommend swinging by to check it out!

4. Expungement Clinic

One of the first events held at our new Opportunity Center was an Expungement Clinic. We partnered with Kansas Legal Services and Koch Industries to serve almost 80 individuals, making this clinic the largest expungement clinic Kansas Legal Services has ever held. Our team’s work to promote the clinic, as well as their efforts to qualify individuals for the clinic and provide legal services on the day of the clinic, were astonishing. The clinic helped remove barriers to obtaining employment, housing, and education. This free service also eliminated the large financial cost (approximately $3-4,000) for each applicant. We were thrilled to work with these great partners, and we can’t wait for the next clinic!

5. New Thriftfluencer Group

After the massive success of our first Thriftfluencer group, this program is BACK! For 2025, we have a group of five incredible Thriftfluencers who are scoping our stores and sharing their amazing finds on their social media platforms. Not only will you find fashion inspiration from the group, but they also provide creative ideas for home décor, arts and crafts, and other fun ways to use your Goodwill finds. If you haven’t seen their content yet, check out our Instagram profile or you can find their introductions here.

While we’ve had a great time reminiscing about the exceptional accomplishments we’ve achieved over the past year, we know we wouldn’t be here without the 700+ GWKS employees who make all this possible. Our door attendants, producers, cashiers, mission support staff, educators, day service providers, and many more come to work every day with a heart for our mission. Their actions make it possible for thousands of Kansans to reach for the stars, no matter what barriers they face. Thank you to each one of them, and thank you for coming along with us this week to celebrate Goodwill Industries of Kansas!