Mrs Kelleher first started as a volunteer in 1998 and has seen the shop evolve from a small space on Parker Street’s western side, to the much bigger space.

The director of Vinnies centres Lindsay Rae praised the effort Mrs Kelleher had put in to the Cootamundra store.

“Trish dedicated her life to running the centre,” Mr Rae said.

He said Mrs Kelleher helped revolutionise the store by organising clothing donations by size and category and ensuring they were presented well.

That system has since been adopted at Vinnies stores across NSW and is slowly spreading to other states.

Mr Rae said the volunteers who had supported the store and Mrs Kelleher which had made that success possible.

Without the support of Cootamundra and the district, the store wouldn’t be able to operate.

"Without volunteers, you wouldn’t have your doors open,” Mrs Kelleher said.

She said she enjoyed her time both volunteering and then working at the store.

“I made a lot of friends over the years and helped lots and lots of people,” Mrs Kelleher said.

While she’s retired from the role of store manager, Mrs Kelleher will join the Canberra-Gouldburn conference as a volunteer. The conference is responsible for arranging help from Vinnies for the people who need it.

“I’m still involved with Vinnies, it’s such a good organisation, I can’t speak highly enough of it.”

Conference president Warwick Fulton said the money raised in the Vinnies store went to help people who asked for it.

Mr Fulton said conference volunteers would help solve the immediate crisis for people, whether that was paying an electricity bill, having no food or no appropriate clothing. Then they would find out what the underlying issue is to help solve the problem.

“What we’re wanting to do is to give people a hand up,” Mr Fulton said.