Spring has sprung at the store after a complete overhaul of the clothing merchandise and a great April Fool’s Day Extravaganza sale that brought in nearly $2,000 in sales! Former interim lead, Linda Malone, has stepped back into her primary Wednesday morning team shift as we now have Linda Jeffries in our full-time/full-store Manager staff position. We are so grateful for the oversight and organization Linda Malone has provided the last six months in clothing and for the huge Spring Cleaning she guided over the weekend with a great team of Volunteers to make it all happen! Linda had this to say about the work of the Volunteers:
“I wanted to describe the absolute wonderful dedication of our Volunteers to Renewed Treasures and to the mission of the store and to the mission of Love INC. About the middle of March, we still had a fair amount of winter clothing that needed to go out on the floor for sale. So they sorted and put out the best of the best and they steamed it and they priced it. And we continued to put winter clothing on the floor until the morning of April 1st – our big April 1st Extravaganza sale – so that people could have the opportunity to still shop at their low prices, some quality winter goods. During that same time, the Volunteers sorted, priced, and steamed the very best of best of spring clothing. We were able to hang up a lot of these items in the back of our processing area and then when we ran out of space we stored them in one of our pods in the back. People, every single shift, they were dedicated and worked the entire time there were there getting as much work done as they could. I want to highlight one team in particular – the Friday afternoon team. On Friday, March 31st, the power went out in the store about 2:30pm and that meant that we only our emergency lights on then – and even those were flickering and flickering. That Friday team was almost in the dark and also dealing with a horrible sewer smell that had to be taken care of as well. They stayed and continued to work the entire shift with flickering lights and bad sewer smell and got through bin after bin after bin of spring clothing priced and sorted and steamed. They were even able to clean up the entire back processing room before they left too. We’ve been having ongoing sales; dollar pant sales and fifty percent off sales for women’s coats, jackets, purses and so forth during the back half of March. We sold quite a bit of these items and then on April 1st – April Fools Day – we had our “extravaganza” and had a record number of sales and money that was able to be brought it for the mission.
So Monday, starting at 8am; we had Volunteers all day, many until 5:30pm. These many Volunteers throughout the day helped pull all of the winter items that were still on the floor. The majority of it went to another non-profit that gives the items to a “Career Closet” so that women have nice quality business clothing to wear to work. They also give to homeless and to women’s shelters. Catholic Charities also came and took a great portion of what we were able to pull on that day. In addition, all of the boots and winter boots were taken to “Soles for Souls”, an organization that hands out shoes and boots to areas in the United States that can sell these items as well as third-world countries. So on Monday, since everything was pulled from the store; we had Volunteers cleaning the baseboards and scrubbing down every surface that was on the clothing side making it absolutely spic and span. Then, after the Volunteers had a lunch break, the rest of the afternoon was spent taking the spring weather clothes from back processing area to the newly cleaned merchandising racks.
So now we have all new-to-us – and new-to-our-customers – clothing, shoes, and accessories and that was finished by 5:30 on Monday and ready for our customers as they came in a 9am on Tuesday morning. People, all day long on Tuesday and Wednesday, said how wonderful the store looks, “it’s so bright, it’s so ‘spring-y’, it’s so cheery and attractive.” The Tuesday team had worked very hard on displays and made everything look so nice. Everyone did this work with a grateful heart, that they could be there to help this ministry that we all believe in so, so strongly! The Volunteers were, truly, the hands, feet, and heart of Jesus.”
