Skip Petersen sat on the porch of the Midnight Mermaid Tuesday evening with a journal open in her lap. Apparently oblivious to the throng of people in thrift shop attire that surrounded her, she scrawled in the journal her thoughts and blessings to Darlene Kelly and Penny Townes, who were fired from their posts at the Edgartown Second Hand Store in mid July.

“It wasn’t just a store, it was a great pow-pow place,” Ms. Petersen wrote and later showed the reporter. “It will never be the same.”

A regular patron at the store, Ms. Petersen was one of many community members who packed onto the porch and lawn of Rebekah Blu’s gallery to show support for the former thrift shop employees. The event, with a crowd pouring out on to the Upper Main street sidewalk in Edgartown, was a representation of the community’s reaction to Martha’s Vineyard Boys’ and Girls’ Club leaders’ decision to re-staff and re-organize.

“I know it’s upset a lot of people because these two women were very loved by the community,” Ms. Petersen said. “It was devastating.”

Guests, instructed to wear their favorite thrift-shop goods, included people from across the Island as well as vacationers from off-Island.

Priscilla Sinatra, a volunteer at Chicken Alley thrift shop in Vineyard Haven came to represent the store in support of Ms. Kelly and Ms. Townes.

“We’re all trying to do the same thing, help the community,” she said. “I’m sure if anything happened to Chicken Alley we’d have the same outpouring.”

Decked out in a colorful ensemble of flower-print shorts, a light blue shirt and a small back-pack, Cathy Lewis proudly announced, “I am entirely clothed in thrift shop.”

Frank Folts, who owns Sun Dog in Egartown, moved between conversations with a small cow doll draped on his shoulder, one of his favorite finds at the Second Hand Store.

Guests scooped up snacks donated by Island businesses while a band kept them entertained with fiddle music.

Even as the supporters described the firings like natural disasters, the mood of the evening was jovial.

“My hope in hosting this gathering in their honor was to have it serve as a reminder to them of just how cherished they are,” Ms. Blu said of Ms. Kelly and Ms. Townes, who seemed genuinely touched by the many well-wishers there to support them.