Monday morning marked the official grand opening of a new Goodwill retail store in the Maddex Farm Shopping Center in Shepherdstown.

This is the fourth Horizon Goodwill Industries store in the Eastern Panhandle. Stores are already open in Charles Town and Martinsburg.

Horizon Goodwill Industries includes 17 total stores in a service territory of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

Debra Carbaugh, manager of Marketing and Community Relations said the group is excited about its newest store.

“We’re ecstatic,” she said

“We’ve had such a strong response from the community.”

“Hopefully it will be good for the community as well as for Goodwill,” she said.

Carbaugh explained that Goodwill retail stores serve as a means to support the company’s community programs.

90 cents to every dollar generated at Goodwill goes toward job training services for individuals who experience “barriers to employment.”

This includes those with mental or physical disabilities that they’re overcoming, people who’ve had a brush with the law, and those who’ve experienced long-term unemployment, she said.

The Goodwill works with service partners like the Social Security Administration and the Department for Rehab Services to identify candidates for said programs.

The Goodwill vocational programs offer participants employment in retail locations, the Goodwill custodial service division and document shredding solutions division, among other opportunities.

Goodwill also assists in career planning, and job readiness planning, and post employment support, among other services.

Carbaugh called Shepherdstown a prime location to spread the Goodwill mission as it offer access to Shepherd University’s student population.

“There’s an initiative with Goodwill and colleges all over the United States,” she said.

“It’s the only town like this in our territory,” Craig MacLean, Executive Director and CEO said.

“There’s no other town that comes close to being what Shepherdstown is,” he said.

MacLean said the store has been in the works for about a year, though renovations delayed an opening until Monday.

Cheryl Baume, the store’s new manger said she thinks Shepherdstown needed a Goodwill.

“I get donations on top of donations,” she said.

Goodwill stores carry gently used clothing, house wares, electronics, furniture and much more.

Six staff members total now run the store.

Store hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Saturday and 12 noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

Donations can be dropped off during store hours.