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Storyline · 1977–1989

The PTA Thrift Shop and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, 1977–1989

The PTA Thrift Shop, run by the Chapel Hill and Carrboro PTAs, gave its profits to the local schools. It turned over $61,479 in 1977, opened a second store in its own building on Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro by 1979 and cleared $250,202 in the year ending June 1985. In 1989 it decided to buy the lot beside the Carrboro store for an addition. In 1989 the shops gave the schools $279,000, their largest donation yet.

1977–1989 Filed under Schools & Education 5 dated events

By 1977 the PTA Thrift Shop on Franklin Street had been operating for 20 years, with 12 paid workers and donations from bins around Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and that year it gave all of its profit, $61,479, to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools. By January 1979 the shop, run by the Chapel Hill and Carrboro PTAs, had opened a second store at 103 Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro, in a building the PTA owned, while keeping its rented shop on Franklin Street. It gave its proceeds to the schools in proportion to their volunteers' hours, mostly for enrichment programs such as art projects and field trips.

In the year ending June 30, 1985 the shops in Carrboro and Kroger Plaza cleared $250,202 after operating expenses, to be divided among nine Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools for library books, playground equipment, computers and other things state and county funds did not cover. By April 1989 shop leaders said the two stores had grossed close to $500,000 the year before and that the ten-year mortgage on the Carrboro store would be paid off that month. Because another buyer wanted the lot beside the Jones Ferry Road store, the shop decided to buy it for an addition before its land use permits were issued; the renovation and addition were estimated at $150,000 to $200,000. In 1989 the nonprofit shops at Kroger Plaza and on Jones Ferry Road gave $279,000 to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, their largest donation yet, the shops' manager said.

Towns
Chapel Hill, Carrboro
Sites
1

The events, date by date

Every statement above comes from these dated entries in the chronology. Each links to its source.

  1. The PTA Thrift Shop turns $61,479 in profits over to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools The PTA Thrift Shop on Franklin Street, which had been operating for 20 years with 12 paid workers and donations from bins around both towns, gave all of its $61,479 profit for the year to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools. Place: Franklin Street, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill-Carrboro schoolsSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, March 17, 1978, p. 9
  2. The PTA Thrift Shop opens a second store in its own building on Jones Ferry Road The PTA Thrift Shop, run by the Chapel Hill and Carrboro PTAs, opened a new store at 103 Jones Ferry Road in a building the PTA owns, while keeping its rented shop on Franklin Street. It gives its proceeds to the local schools in proportion to volunteers' hours, mostly for enrichment programs such as art projects and field trips. Place: 103 Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro · Also mentions: Franklin Street, Jones Ferry RoadSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, January 22, 1979, p. 5
  3. The PTA Thrift Shops clear $250,202 for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools The PTA Thrift Shops in Carrboro and Kroger Plaza made $250,202 in profit after operating expenses in the year ending June 30, 1985, to be divided among nine Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools for library books, playground equipment, computers and other things state and county funds did not cover. Place: PTA Thrift Shops, Carrboro and Kroger Plaza, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, Kroger PlazaSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 11, 1985, p. 3
  4. PTA Thrift Shops give a record $279,000 to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools The nonprofit PTA Thrift Shops at Kroger Plaza and on Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro gave $279,000 to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools in 1989, their largest donation yet, manager Betty Suggs said. Place: Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro · Also named: Betty Suggs · Also mentions: Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, Kroger PlazaSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, January 16, 1990, p. 7
  5. PTA Thrift Shop decides to buy the lot beside its Jones Ferry Road store The Carrboro PTA Thrift Shop decided to buy the lot next to its Jones Ferry Road store for an addition before its land use permits were issued, because another buyer wanted the land; renovation and addition were estimated at $150,000 to $200,000. Shop leaders said the Carrboro and Kroger Plaza stores, which give their profits to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, grossed close to $500,000 the year before, and that the ten-year mortgage on the Carrboro store would be paid off that month. Place: Jones Ferry Road, Carrboro · Also mentions: Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, Kroger PlazaSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, April 12, 1989, p. 4

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Reading on the places and people in this storyline

No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are about the sites and people its dated events name, those named most often first, so they may discuss the storyline only in part. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.

About Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · named in 3 of this story’s entries

More than a mentoring program : attacking institutional racism

Meyer, Graig M. · 2018 · Information Age Publishing

Graig M. Meyer's 2018 account, written with George Noblit, of a youth mentoring program in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools that set out to attack institutional racism and close racial achievement gaps. Chapters lay out an antiracist mentoring model, racial identity development, advocacy at the system level, staffing and leadership, and a culture of continuous improvement. Published by Information Age Publishing, 211 pages, online.

Oral history interview with Sam Holton, March 28, 2001: interview K-0206, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Holton, Samuel M. · 2007 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Samuel M. Holton (1922-2010) sat on Chapel Hill's school board during desegregation. Elected in 1968 after a term as PTA president, he took office as racial tension rose after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Talking with Jenny Matthews in March 2001, he describes the board's decisions on integrating the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and the conflicts that came with them. Runs about eighty minutes; electronic edition issued by the UNC library in 2007 through Documenting the American South.

Oral history interview with Edwin Caldwell, March 2, 2001: interview K-0202, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

Caldwell, Edwin · 2006 · University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill

Edwin Caldwell, Jr. reviews a life in Chapel Hill politics in a three-hour Southern Oral History Program interview recorded March 2, 2001, by Oliver White. A skilled organizer, Caldwell worked in the campaign that made Howard Lee the town's first Black mayor in 1969, ran for office more than once without winning, and became a local political power. The conversation also covers race relations, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board and the Church of Reconciliation. Published online in 2006 in Documenting the American South.

The effects of desegregation on selected variables in the Chapel Hill city school system

Prichard, Paul Newton, 1935- · 1969

Paul Newton Prichard's 1969 study of what desegregation changed in the Chapel Hill city school system, measured against academic achievement and other selected variables. Topics include school integration and achievement in the town, and a bibliography runs to page 115. Written during the district's own desegregation years, which makes it a contemporary source as well as a study.

Wider background: Schools & Education · the most widely held histories of the theme this storyline is filed under; they may not discuss it

William Friday

Link, William A. · 1995

Biography of William C. Friday, president of the University of North Carolina system, by historian William A. Link, published by UNC Press in 1995 with the subtitle power, purpose, and American higher education. It covers Friday's career and the history of the university at Chapel Hill and statewide. Part of the Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection.

The Woman Who Rang the Bell: The Story of Cornelia Spencer Phillips

Russell, Charles Phillips · 1949

Charles Phillips Russell's biography of Cornelia Phillips Spencer (1825-1908), the Chapel Hill writer remembered for ringing the bell of South Building when the university reopened in 1875 after its closure during Reconstruction. It doubles as a history of Chapel Hill and the university. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1949, 293 pages with illustrations.

Reviewed in Journal of American History (1949).

Hark the Sound of Tar Heel Voices

Barefoot, Daniel W. · 2008

Daniel W. Barefoot arranges first-hand recollections of the University of North Carolina by decade, from the 'infant university' of the 1790s through the Civil War years when promise turned to despair, the rebuilding of the 1870s, the 'frosh' life of the 1880s, wartime fame in the 1940s, the controversies of the 1960s and the bicentennial of the 1990s. Thomas Wolfe's student years appear among the voices. Published by John F. Blair of Winston-Salem in 2008, 257 pages.

The Story of the Institute of Government, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Coates, Albert McKinley · 1981

Albert Coates's own account of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina, which he founded, subtitled 'out of a classroom in Chapel Hill' and published in 1981. The 303 pages trace the institute's history and its role in educating North Carolina's public officials.

Horace Williams

Winston, Sr., Robert Watson · 1942 · The University of North Carolina press

Robert Watson Winston's biography of Henry Horace Williams (1858-1940), who taught philosophy at the University of North Carolina for half a century, subtitled gadfly of Chapel Hill. Published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1942, 309 pages with frontispiece and portraits; this copy is autographed. Topics include educators in Chapel Hill and the university's history.

Reviewed in Social Forces (1943).

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To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation’s Oldest University

Kapur, Geeta · 2021

Geeta Kapur's history of race at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from the enslaved labor that built the campus through desegregation and the Black student protests that followed. Twelve chapters, with a foreword by William Barber II, move from the founding era and the Great Depression controversies to the state's response to integration and the turmoil of later decades; North Carolina Central University also figures. Published 2021 by Blair in Durham.

Communists on Campus

Billingsley, William J. · 1999 · University of Georgia Press

William J. Billingsley's history of the Speaker Ban Law, the 1963 North Carolina statute that barred known Communists from speaking on state campuses, and the fight over it at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The subtitle sets the scope: race, politics and the public university in sixties North Carolina. It treats academic freedom, anti-communist movements and free speech in the state. University of Georgia Press, 1999, 308 pages with eight pages of plates.

Reviewed in Academe (2000), The American Historical Review (2001), The Journal of Southern History (2001), Journal of American History (2001), The Journal of Politics (2001).

Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina

Pleasants, Julian M.; Burns, Augustus M., III · 1990 · UNC Press

Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III on the 1950 Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina, in which Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, lost to Willis Smith after a campaign marked by race-baiting. Primaries, elections and race relations in the state are its subjects. Published by UNC Press in 1990, 356 pages with illustrations.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1991), The American Historical Review (1991), Journal of American History (1991), The Journal of Southern History (1992).

Francis Preston Venable of the University of North Carolina

Bursey, Maurice M. · 1989 · Chapel Hill Historical Society

Maurice M. Bursey's biography of Francis Preston Venable (1856 to 1934), chemist and president of the University of North Carolina, published by the Chapel Hill Historical Society in 1989. It also covers the history of the university's chemistry department. Illustrated, 111 pages, with bibliographies.

Reviewed in Isis (1992).

Fire and Stone: The Making of the University of North Carolina under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham and Harry Woodburn Chase

Covington, Jr., Howard E. · 2018

Howard E. Covington Jr.'s history of how the University of North Carolina took shape under Presidents Edward Kidder Graham (1876 to 1918) and Harry Woodburn Chase (1883 to 1955), published by the University Library in 2018. The 528-page account covers campus history in the early twentieth century and includes portraits.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (2020).

NC Digital Collections record courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

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Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “The PTA Thrift Shop and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools, 1977–1989.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/pta-thrift-shop-storyline-1977/. Accessed October 22, 2026.

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