GREENFIELD — Estela De Sousa and her husband, Jovino Martins, spent Wednesday afternoon unloading cardboard boxes of clothing, jewelry and artwork from their car and unpacking them inside a Main Street shop space.
The store’s windows are currently papered up, but on Saturday, De Sousa and her mother, Judith Fernandes, will hold a grand opening ceremony for the new business — Mimosa’s Thrift Shop, located at 223 Main St.
“She always had a thing for businesses and selling clothes back in Cape Verde, where we’re from, so she wanted to do this a long time ago,” De Sousa said of her mother. “She finally decided to drive up to Greenfield, so we drove up here and saw this place was for rent.”
She said the store will carry “something for everyone,” with clothes and shoes of all sizes available for men, women and children. Mimosa’s will also offer accessories such as scarves and jewelry, as well as furniture in the near future.
De Sousa and her mother live in Amherst, but said they saw an opportunity in Greenfield, with an affordable rent and plenty of downtown traffic.
“I see a lot of stores around here are really expensive, so we wanted to start something that everybody can afford,” De Sousa said, adding she also lived in Greenfield for about a year at one point.
Fernandes came to the United States in 1998 and De Sousa in 2001, when she was 11 years old.
De Sousa said her mother is a go-getter and after she saw the space, everything came together within a month.
“She saw the store and she was like, ‘This is the perfect time and I’m going to do it,’” she said. “It was always a dream of hers to open a store. She’s into the vintage thrifting and she likes finding old things and making them new, putting her touch on it.”
Fernandes is also a certified nursing assistant and owns Judy’s Angels Home Health Care, LLC, an in-home health care service based in Amherst. In her free time, De Sousa said, her mother likes to drive around finding store closings and bargains.
“My mom, she’s pretty careful about the clothes she buys and picks. She doesn’t just go and buy anything, she’ll find something that she likes and she thinks people would like also,” she said. “She pays attention to the thing she buys.”
The thrift store got its name, De Sousa said, from her mother’s nickname.
“Back home, her mother calls her Mimosa,” she said, adding that the store’s color scheme was inspired by the drink, and non-alcoholic versions will be served during the grand opening.
The shop will be run mainly by Fernandes, but De Sousa said she plans to help out, along with her four brothers and sister.
“We’re excited. It was something that she always talked about and we kind of brushed it off, but when she sees something and she wants it, she goes for it,” she said.
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