DELIVERING NEWS TO MID-COLUMBIA SENIORS SINCE 1982
OCTOBER 2023
Vol. 11 | Issue 10
TUESDAY, OCT. 17 Sports 9 A.M. − 3 P.M. Southridge & Events Complex
Chaplaincy to close its remaining thrift store By Kristina Lord
kristina@tcjournal.biz
A Richland thrift shop that provided an outlet for grieving families to donate their loved ones’ items and a place where shoppers could feel good about supporting a cause will close its doors next month. Repeat Boutique, a thrift store operated by Tri-Cities Chaplaincy, shutters its shop in the Uptown Shopping Center on Nov. 17. It stopped accepting donations in September. The announcement follows the closures of Chaplaincy’s downtown Kennewick store in 2020 and its Pasco store in 2022. The decision wasn’t an easy one
for the nonprofit that offers bereavement and hospice services, including operating the largest hospice program in Benton County and the only one serving Franklin County. “We are not in the business of retail. … As all nonprofits know, you have to regularly go back to your mission. What’s the focus? What are we doing? Are we serving our community best?” said Laurie Jackson, chief executive officer for Chaplaincy. Repeat Boutique’s original mission was to offset the cost of operating the hospice program, which operates at a deficit – $228,000 in 2022 uREPEAT BOUTIQUE, Page 2
Photo by Rachel Visick Esther Paredes, store manager, arranges clothes at Repeat Boutique. Tri-Cities Chaplaincy’s thrift store at 1331 George Washington Way in Richland will close Nov. 17.
Pasco baker serves up variety of sweet comfort food By Jeff Morrow for Senior Times
Aubrieann Johnson had always wanted to own her own business. It was just that, for the longest time, the 32-year-old Pasco woman never could figure out what that would be. It took going through some rough times before she found her answer: banana bread. It happens to be a food that she herself couldn’t even stomach. “No, not in a million years. It was not even on my radar,” she said. “I’m not even a fan of bananas.” But here she is, two years into Aub’s Bananza Bread, with a storefront at the Pasco Specialty Kitchen and stalls at the
Public Market at Columbia River Warehouse in Kennewick and Pasco Farmers Market to satisfy her ever-growing fan base. “Banana bread is comfort food, and it makes people think about what grandma or mom made them,” Johnson said. “It becomes personal at that point.” What’s she’s built has been impressive, but so is her journey and how she got there.
A start of something big
Johnson was working at Charter College as an admission representative when the pandemic hit. She got sick, but it wasn’t Covid-19. It took her six months of tests before she received a diagnosis of rheumatoid
arthritis. During this time, like many others during the pandemic, she lost her job. Trying to find something to do as she started to get better, she became a caregiver to a friend who had suffered a few strokes. Part of her routine was to go to a local Starbucks each day to get her friend banana bread. One day, though, Starbucks was out, so Johnson bought lemon loaf cake. The friend rejected it and wanted her to make banana bread instead. Never having made banana bread before – remember, Johnson doesn’t really like bananas – she found a recipe online and made a loaf. Her friend loved it, and suddenly her
banana bread would be the only one that would do. Her friends and family tasted it, too. “Honestly, my dad was the one who told me I could sell it,” she said. That got her thinking: Maybe she could do it. “I was raised by a single father (Aubrey Johnson Sr.), and for my entire life he never worked for anyone else,” she said. “He’s an entrepreneur, and he’s had a lot of different businesses. Among other things he was a cosmetologist, and he owned a barbecue restaurant. She started slow, posting on Facebook that she was taking orders. Each week she got more and more. uBANANZA BREAD, Page 10
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
MONTHLY QUIZ
The Tri-City Dust Devils were preceded by what Holiday bazaars are back Page 7
Top-secret Hanford documents travel cross-country under tight security
Page 13
local team? ANSWER, PAGE 9
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