Good Deals, Good Deeds; Habitat for Humanity's Win-Win Idea [Correction 4/26/05]

Environmental engineer John Harrison well recalls that magic moment last year when he spied -- amid the second-hand toilets, used sofas and rejected gallons of paint -- an entire, high-end kitchen easily worth $45,000.

He drove straight home to tell his girlfriend, Evalyn Tyson, the owner of a Victorian townhouse they are rehabbing in Baltimore. By morning she happily shelled out $2,000 for what Harrison dubbed "the deal of a lifetime" at Renovation Station, a building supply and home furnishings resale shop opened last June by the Anne Arundel County chapter of Habitat for Humanity in Pasadena, Md.

The deal included 13 Wood-Mode maple cabinets; a KitchenAid dishwasher, double oven, electric stovetop and built-in toaster; a GE Monogram refrigerator; and a Kohler sink with brass fixtures.

"To have just one other cabinet made to match what we got would cost $1,600 and take four months," says Tyson.

Although her kitchen coup was an extreme bargain, it reflects the "win-win-win-win" ethos behind Habitat-run thrift shops, including three in this area:

Local chapters of Habitat, the international organization that has built nearly 200,000 affordable homes for needy families since 1976, raise …