Volunteers Jennie Smith and Marilyn Williams pause for a photo between the racks of clothes at Community Kindness of Eastern Oregon on Friday, June 18, 2021. The small thrift store, which relies on volunteers and donations to stay in business, celebrated its second year of operations July 2 and has decorated with British flair in anticipation of La Grande’s Crazy Days event.

LA GRANDE — A slew of British flags are adorning Adams Avenue at Community Kindness of Eastern Oregon.

And yes, the British are coming.

The flags are a part of Community Kindness of Eastern Oregon’s new campaign to brand itself using the owner’s British heritage. The flags are going up just in time to celebrate the thrift store’s second year in La Grande.

The store also boasts that they’re expecting the Queen and Doctor Who during the La Grande Crazy Days event — albeit in cardboard cutout form.

“We’d just done a course with Northeast Oregon Economic Development. It’s about becoming a destination business,” said Grant Meyer, who runs Community Kindness of Eastern Oregon with his wife, Liz Meyer.

“We want to bring people in as far away as Boise and Portland,” he said. ”One way to do that is to have a monument, like Sinclair gas station has a dinosaur outside, that’s their monument.”

The thrift store is trading on Liz Meyer’s British heritage by offering photo opportunities in front of large landscape prints of Big Ben, Westminster Bridge and the Palace of Westminster. At the center of it remains the same bubbly attitude that Liz Meyer is known for — and the kindness that helped form the thrift store.

Community Kindness of Eastern Oregon operates as one of only a few nonprofit thrift stores in La Grande and the greater Union County area. Liz Meyer takes it one step further — she doesn’t collect a salary or wage from her work at the thrift store, despite spending seven days a week at the boutique organizing, setting prices, greeting customers and helping dole out British charm.

“Nonprofit was a big thing for me,” she said. “My heart is really in it for my community. I don’t take a penny for this. I don’t pay myself for this. Some people think I’m crazy, some people think I’m nuts. But there’s a need, and I want to be a part of helping somebody out.”

Among those needs are clothing for individuals coming out of jail or who need clothes for a job interview, according to the Meyers, but it varies based on what comes through the door; at one point, the thrift store helped cover travel expenses of two young men who were stranded in La Grande and sent them back home to their families, sending one as far as New York. The nonprofit also donates fidget blankets to Wildflower Lodge Assisted Living & Memory Care Community.

The blankets, which are crafted by volunteers, have various small sensory and tangible objects attached to them. It’s designed to help those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia by focusing their attention.

“It helps calm them down when they’re having anxiety attacks and things like that,” said Liz Meyer. “My grandmother had Alzheimer’s — I was very close to her — and she passed away when I was 21, 22. It’s just something I carried with me in my mind. I have a truly high respect for the elderly in the community. I have a desire and a need to help people.”

At the heart of it, that’s what Community Kindness of Eastern Oregon is about, according to the Meyers — helping people in need, whether that means donating clothes or offering up a daily hug to elderly patrons who ask for it. Giving back is what fuels Liz Meyer, not a paycheck.

“People just want to be cared for and loved,” she said. “There’s too much in the world going on and I think we forget the things that matter most: a minute to chat, a minute to care.”