by Ruthy Wexler
In a corner of the Goodwill Thrift Store in Glendale, employee Nancy Thurman plucks a pink sweatshirt from a shopping cart piled with clothing. First she tests the zipper. Then she bends to scrutinize the material. “I am looking to see if there’s a big tear,” she explains. “Or if it has a button missing. Or if it’s dirty.”
The shirt passes muster. “I’m zipping it up so it won’t fall off the hanger,” Nancy states, brown eyes proud of knowledge gained from experience. Then she goes to get another item from the overflowing cart.
Nancy is 70-years-old. This past July, she celebrated her 50th anniversary with Goodwill. You might jump to the conclusion that she never again wants to see one more pink sweatshirt. But from all accounts, working at Goodwill is the happy center of Nancy’s life.
The youngest of three sisters, Nancy was born in an era when families did not talk about having a “special child.” Nancy’s oldest sibling Lynne reflects on Nancy’s luck at being born to their particular parents. “My mother’s philosophy was: ‘We created a beautiful little bird and we will let it fly.’”
There was no mainstreaming back then; her parents enrolled Nancy in the Developmental classes at Wyman Elementary and East High School. “Growing up,” Lynne recalls, “we got involved with people in Nancy’s various classes. We saw how they were not allowed to be open to possibilities. My parents could have kept her in a safe little bubble. But instead they said, ‘Let her live.’”
Nancy began with love and acceptance. Still, research has shown that happiness comes from finding purpose in life. “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue,” goes the famous quote from Victor Frankl. So in Nancy’s senior year, when she interned for Goodwill, then got a job there upon graduation — it seemed an extremely lucky break.
Except … for Goodwill, this was business as usual.
“It is our mission, it’s what we do, help people who face what we call ‘barriers to employment’,” says Vanessa Clark, Senior Director of Marketing at Goodwill Industries of Denver. “We have lots of folks just like Nancy. In lots of ways, her story is not unique.”
Goodwill Industries of Denver separates people who encounter “barriers to employment” into three groups — at risk students, struggling adults and families, individuals with disabilities — and provides programs to serve them. “All the programs are work force development in nature,” Clark explains. “It is all about helping people take care of themselves.”
Goodwill provides a variety of services for both intellectual and developmental disabilities; e.g., workshops in American Sign Language, training individuals to fix donated bicycles and electronics, facility based day programs.
So the clothing and coffee pots we see are just a tip of the iceberg?
“Yes,” smiles Clark. “This is our funding model: get donations, sell those donations through retail stores, and through the proceeds, fund our programs. All that clothing is processed by donation attendants, who are simultaneously learning organizational and other life skills.”
When Teshe Shimeles worked as a donation attendant, the life skill he learned was fluent English. As an ambitious 26-year-old in Ethiopia, Teshe won his DV (Diversity Visa) through a lottery; upon arriving in Denver in 2001, he was guided by his sponsor to Goodwill. Fourteen years later, he is manager (and has been for over a decade) of the Glendale Goodwill, supervising 44 employees, including Nancy Thurman.
“Seriously … Nancy is the best worker,” Teshe says. “Never late. Never forgets anything. We call her the Governor of Shoes.”
The story goes that, a few years back, when Nancy’s job was organizing the store’s shoes, she confounded everyone by finding a mate for every single shoe. “At the end of the day,” Teshe recalls, “she knew exactly how many white pairs, 
how many brown …”
As a child, Nancy was presented with a confusing array of cognitive limitations and physical difficulties. For a while, the family thought her diagnosis might be Savant (think Rain Man with Dustin Hoffman). “She’s always the scorekeeper when we play Yahtzee,” Lynne says, laughing. “My sister and I are college graduates but even before we begin adding up the numbers, Nancy’s done. And she’s always right.”
Despite her arithmetic facility, Nancy needs her family’s help to live independently. She sees them often, plays hide and seek with the little ones at family gatherings. “Everyone loves Aunt Nancy,” Lynn says. “She’s a character.”
But she’s something else, too: an important person at work. Co-workers appreciate Nancy’s willingness to help out wherever needed. They kid her affectionately about her love for the Broncos. When she was younger, Nancy was part of a circle of friends from Goodwill who went out together. “But those people were older and they’ve died,” Lynne relates. “Now, she feels so good about coming into work. She feels she has friends here.”
Does she ever get tired of working?
“No, I don’t get tired. Am I not the Governor of Shoes?” Nancy answers. She says proudly, “Teshe tells me, ‘I don’t know what we’ll do when you’re gone.’”
“Goodwill has given Nancy a sense of purpose,” Lynne observes. Then more quietly, “She has been molded by my parents … and by Goodwill.”