A Waltham bookstore and donation hub has become a full thrift shop, giving young adult associates a larger retail floor to help run. Boomerangs by More Than Words opened to shoppers on Friday, Oct. 9, at 56 Felton St. in Waltham, Massachusetts, after a ribbon-cutting two days earlier. The store now offers clothing, accessories, furniture, home goods, books and other secondhand items. More Than Words is a youth-empowerment nonprofit that operates its businesses as part of a job-training model.
The expansion changes the kind of customer-facing work available at the site. More Than Words had operated an online bookselling business and a small storefront in Waltham. In a preview before opening, the Waltham Times reported that the previous jobs were mostly behind the scenes, while the expanded store would put associates in a larger public retail setting. Its Oct. 11 report described young people collecting donations, pricing items, arranging the sales floor, helping shoppers and working the register.
The work is part of a program for young adults, including people who have experienced foster care, court involvement, homelessness or interrupted schooling. More Than Words pairs business jobs with coaching toward education and employment goals, according to the Waltham Times. The organization’s model gives participants responsibility inside a real retail operation while they set and work toward personal goals. The new shop makes that work visible to customers as they browse, ask questions and bring purchases to checkout.
For Alex, a 23-year-old associate who had worked at the Waltham site for five months, the store offered a way to gain retail experience without arriving with a long work history. Alex told the Waltham Times that the job helped them build confidence, including the ability to make mistakes and keep going. Their experience illustrates the kind of practical learning the expansion is meant to make possible: everyday tasks become repeated chances to practice customer service, organization and teamwork.
The opening also brought back a former participant. Nadia, 24, had graduated from the program and returned for the celebration. She was studying psychology and planned to work with young children with special needs, the Waltham Times reported. Nadia said the job had helped her discover that she could take on difficult things. Her path shows one way a work experience can connect with later plans, while staying specific to what she shared rather than claiming a single outcome for every participant.
The bigger store is also expected to expand the number of opportunities available. Before the opening, the Waltham Times reported that grants for renovations would add 12 positions to the Waltham training program. The Oct. 11 story said the larger shop offers more job slots and more intensive retail training. That is a planned expansion of capacity, not a claim that all 12 positions have already been filled. The reported goal is to give more young adults a chance to learn through the day-to-day work of the store.
The project combined nonprofit, foundation and public support. The Waltham Times reported that the Yawkey Foundation and Fish Family Foundation helped fund the renovations, along with state grants. At the ribbon-cutting, state Sen. Mike Barrett said that the organization teaches entrepreneurship, teamwork and professionalism, the Waltham Times reported. Waltham Mayor Jeanette McCarthy told the local paper that the thrift-store model could create more opportunities for growth, business skills and interaction with the public.
More Than Words opened the Waltham location as a full thrift store while continuing its bookselling work. The new shop joins the organization’s Boomerangs stores in Boston and Cambridge, the Waltham Times reported. The nonprofit’s official store page lists the Felton Street location and current shopping hours: Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is closed Mondays.
The expansion gives the organization a larger space to sell donated goods and gives associates more public-facing jobs to practice. The evidence so far is concrete: the store opened, young adults are performing retail roles, and the program expects more training places in Waltham. The articles do not yet report how many of the new positions have been filled or measure the expansion’s long-term outcomes. For now, the shop’s first days mark a new chapter for a local business designed to help young people build skills while serving customers.
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