Making A Difference: An Occasional Series Profiling North Idaho’S Community Leaders Time To Give Woman And Her Team Have Expanded Work Done By Coeur D’Alene’S St. Vincent De Paul Society

Call it style. Lynn Peterson steps into a tired second-hand store and lightbulbs burn brighter, shoes struggle to shine and shoppers sprint with the energy of high school boys in a race.

At least in Peterson’s dreams. That’s where Coeur d’Alene’s St. Vincent de Paul thrift store satisfies every need, places every shopper in a model job and teaches everyone the formula for a wonderful life.

“She’s like a top that never quits turning, but she’d give you the shirt off her back,” Margaret Lightfoot says, carefully studying Peterson, her boss.

St. Vincent de Paul’s parking lot stays packed every day thanks to Peterson. Donations stuff the store. Two shelters protect homeless men, women and children from slumberless nights outdoors.

A longer-term shelter helps families restore order to their lives. St. Vincent de Paul teaches students, dresses job-seekers and restores sanity because Peterson guides with unparalleled foresight.

“We have all these dreams that come along the way,” says Kathy Reed, social services director at St. Vincent’s. “If it hadn’t been for Lynn, they wouldn’t have come true.”

Peterson, 60, walks faster and smiles broader than most people. Extremes don’t rattle her. If an opportunity requires record-breaking speed, Peterson rises to the challenge.

“Something inspired me here,” she says, glancing around a sun-lit room packed with round racks of skirts, blazers and workout clothes and straight racks of trousers, shirts and uniforms.

Shoppers gather leather purses and match earrings to blouses. They fill shopping carts with Winnie the Pooh sheets, waffle makers and black boots with zippers on one side.

“If you’re shopping in a dumpy, icky place, no one buys,” Peterson says. “I figured if they could find good stuff, they would buy.”

St. Vincent’s began looking for a new thrift store manager in 1988. Peterson was an assistant manager for the U.S. Census that year. Before the census, Peterson was clerk/treasurer for five years for the Lakeland School District board.

St. Vincent’s chose Peterson from 200 applicants.

“What we sold in the store went from $280,000 to $700,000 in three years under her,” Reed says. “She turned it into a department store.”

Peterson learned from other stores in town. One she passed on the freeway every day offered weekly specials. She tried the same approach. Seven day work-weeks were her routine.

“I loved this place,” Peterson says. “I just wanted to make it a good place to shop.”

Except she wanted more than financial success. Balanced numbers contented her, but so did satisfied faces. As Peterson upgraded the thrift store, she noticed shivering people waiting on an outside bench for social services help.

Social services acquainted people with the various help that was available in town through agencies, churches and organizations. Some of the people waiting were looking only for warmer clothes.

“I thought it was crazy,” Peterson says. “We should give those people a coat or blanket.”

Reed worked eagerly with Peterson to distribute warm clothes to people in terrible need.

Peterson had no trouble finding people of similar philosophies. Reed began helping people at St. Pius and easily moved to St. Vincent’s to work with Peterson.

Margaret Lightfoot worked as a pharmacy technician at Wilson’s Pharmacy until it closed in 1990. Her uncle knew her respect for people and passion for decent living for all. He suggested she work with Peterson at St. Vincent’s.

“I wanted to quit (St. Vincent’s), but I gave it six months,” Lightfoot says. “I found a replacement for my favorite boss in Lynn Peterson.”

By 1993, Peterson had cleaned and expanded the store and attracted customers of all incomes. The store’s success allowed St. Vincent’s to expand into other programs. Peterson and Reed cornered Ginger Seaman at their bank, where she was assistant manager.

“We knew she was a good little Catholic girl,” Peterson says, giggling.

“They took me to lunch, overwhelmed me with guilt,” Seaman says. “They needed a board member and were trying to get transitional housing going.”

Seaman has worked with St. Vincent’s since.

“These ladies treat people as equals, human beings, not poor and homeless,” she says.

St. Vincent’s has grown into a major player under Peterson’s spirited direction. Two hundred to 400 customers shop in the thrift store every day. The store has expanded to fill five huge rooms with every material need a family home uses except food.

The organization runs housing agencies, shelters, smaller thrifts in other towns and programs that offer legal counseling. It has become Coeur d’Alene’s resource for the poor as well as a source of pride for savvy shoppers.

“I’m on the brink of insanity,” Peterson says, and her dramatic face doesn’t smile to lighten the message.

The St. Vincent’s she energized is spreading her thin. True to her nature, she hadn’t considered the cost to herself, only the best way to improve life for an overlooked segment of society.

Marriage to Don Peterson, a long-time St. Vincent’s supporter, keeps Peterson animated and focused. But even her staff knows that St. Vincent’s is capable of so much more now.

“This organization can grow with more volunteers. We hope to get the library,” says Lightfoot. The Coeur d’Alene Public Library next to St. Vincent’s is in the midst of constructing a new building.

“Our big dream is to get all the agencies together and coordinate our efforts,” Lightfoot says. “Lynn just needs an assistant who can do the job.”

Peterson has laid the groundwork for big dreams at St. Vincent’s — and she’ll stick around to see those dreams come true.

“One of the nicest families was putting things back in the store when I first came,” she says. “I asked why, and they mistakenly thought they were on sale. I gave it to them on sale.

“We’ve never not had a $2,000 day since. You do it because you care.”