WHEATLAND – In a time when supply-chain issues are causing products to rise at an alarming rate, perhaps a local high-end consignment store is breaking forth at just the right time.

Joyce Beiler was born and raised in Meigs, Gerorgia which is approximately an hour north of Tallahassee, Florida. Meigs is a little town where the Mennonite church has a strong presence and is the environ that Beiler was raised in, graduating from Meigs Mennonite School and going on to Southwest Georgia Technical College where she earned an assistant’s degree in physical therapy.

With three young children, Beiler found it hard to go out into the 9 to 5, but still wanted to find something to do as a career. Her husband, Kevin currently owns and runs Wheatland Garage Door and their website states, “Our family owned and operated garage door company has the all of the capabilities of a large business but with the personalized service of a local company.”

Their children, Samantha – six, Caleb – 3 and Henry who is a few weeks shy of being a year old keep them busy, or perhaps it’s the parents that keep the children busy. Everything they do – whether opening a business or creating a home choir, is all done with family at the foundation of each decision.

The couple met in a church setting, but went their own separate ways for a few years before deciding to make each other more than friends. What brought the couple to Wheatland was Wheatland Garage Door where Kevin Beiler began as a laborer. The couple came out to Wheatland in 2016 and interviewed with Robert Hilty who owned the business.

A few coincidental friendships and connections secured the move and the couple who loved the south is learning to love the west. They would tell you that it was a definite leading of the Spirit of God to come to live and plant roots with their family in Wheatland.

“It’s a very small world,” Joy Beiler said with a smile. “2017 is when we moved out here. Right now, for Family Fashions, we are leasing the building, but we bought the store which used to be behind the picket fence. We bought the store from Alice Brockhaus. She had to sell her business due to some health concerns.”

Wheatland has a few thrift shops and secondhand stores, but when Brockhaus left, high-end consignment was no longer a part of the Wheatland shopping alternatives.

“I think that there’s a need for a consignment shop,” Beiler said. “Most of it is consignment, but I have also some merchandise that I have purchased. In addition, people have donated some things to the store. Most of it, though is consignment.”

It is not just very used consignment goods, but clean and quality items according to Beiler.

“I feel like, if you have quality things, you should get something back for it,” she said. “It’s been working rather well. And this was one of those things where the doors just kept opening. I went from wanting to consign to realizing that we weren’t going to be able to do that. Faith is a big part of it and I would not be here without it.”

Beiler cites a strong leading to come to Wheatland almost as if they were following a perfect plan.

“It was like a leading to buy the garage door business from Robert,” she said. “And the leading like doing something like this consignment store is huge, and I have three young children. But I felt a peace about it and I felt like there was a need in our community. We don’t want to take away from the thrift store, nor do we want to become another thrift store. We also don’t want to become a boutique where we’d have brand-new things. We want to fill that niche between the thrift and the boutique.”

The business officially opened its doors Nov. 17 with a soft opening and a grand opening to be determined at a later date.

“Business in the first week has been really great,” she said. “We have the support of a very good community which is coming in and have been curious even before we had the signs up. We are going to put a sign up on the top of the building and a vinyl sign on the windows.”

Currently the business only has a small sidewalk sign, but it has been large enough to have a lot of people come in to check out the “new kid in town.”

At this point, the store features lightly used men’s clothing, women’s clothing and is working on creating a special section for kid’s clothing. So far there has been no shortage of people bringing things in for consignment.

“They love bringing stuff in,” she said. “I am going to have to tell them to pick between five and twenty items of their best to bring in, and let’s go from there.”

It’s not a store where you can clean out your entire garage and dump the contents into their lap or bring in things that didn’t sell at your garage sale. They are looking for higher quality items at a reasonable price to sell and the clientele that come in also are looking for that same thing.

“We also want to expand into local artists and photography,” she said. “We’ve got this great space that we would like 16 x 24 sizes. We would put these things on consignment too and go 80/20 on all sales. I love photography myself and I love to see great work. I know there are people in town that do wonderful drawings and paintings and photography.”

The store has a motto that reads, “A consignment shop for all ages,” and they are selling things from clothing to jewelry… thus far. Please check out their Facebook page for hours and specials that are going on. https://www.facebook.com/BTPFence/about/?ref=page_internal