Some good news
and a character costume preview
Did we forget to tell you our good news? Back in the fall, Bea’s school leadership surveyed the parents about fundraisers, and they decided to forego the dreaded Boosterthon! (Boosterthon, for the uninitiated, is a for-profit fundraising bonanza that rewards kids for raising money with plastic toys.) Though Boosterthon helped raise significant funds for our school in the past, parents and teachers agreed that for environmental and school-culture reasons we should try something new—a “no-fuss” raffle-basket fundraiser, and a concerted effort to increase our PTA thrift shop hours.
The Chatham PTA Thrift Shop is our county’s fundraising secret weapon, and unlike the Boosterthon, is a net benefit for the Earth, helping to promote the values of reusing and recycling used (and sometimes brand-new-with-tags) items in our community. Three thrift shops—in Cole Park Plaza, Pittsboro’s Piggly Wiggly shopping center, and Siler City’s Chatham Square—collect donated items, display and sell them, and donate 100% of the stores’ profits to local public schools. Sixty percent of these donations are distributed based on the volunteer hours logged by parent, teacher, and community volunteers who “assign” their hours to favorite schools (each shift also offers volunteers a chance to designate money to individual classrooms). When I first heard about the thrift store, I imagined maybe a few thousand dollars being donated each year—the thrift store, after all, sells things very inexpensively (check out Harriet’s fifty-cent owl purse below!).
But how wrong I was! Since 1983, $7 million has gone directly to Chatham Schools, just from the operation of these three thrift shops. Last year, Bea’s elementary school received $28,856! This money goes to technology, classroom needs, art and music supplies, playground and sports equipment, and more. Tomorrow, money raised by our PTA will support a visit from storyteller Donna Washington, a fabulous local performer.
The other thing I love about the thrift store is that it removes the burden of fundraising from the kids themselves. Asking kids to think and talk about, and especially compete over monetary goals (Always Be Closing, kid!) feels inappropriate to me. But encouraging them to think about donating clothes, toys, and books they’ve outgrown, helping to box those up for donation, and even (at age 10) volunteering to organize, clean, and merchandise the store—that is awesome. Plus, it’s a chance to teach them about the responsibility of reducing waste and making sure used items don’t go to the landfill (synthetic textiles can take 200 years to decompose in a landfill!).
Bea can’t wait until she’s old enough to volunteer at the thrift store. In the meantime, Richard has volunteered there, and Bea and I also talked with Joy McKeon, a longtime thrift store volunteer who has donated hundreds of hours of volunteer shifts to Bea’s elementary school, even though her kids are now in high school.
Joy appreciates the chance to give back to public schools and reduce waste in our community. The other benefit, Joy told us, is that at the end of each shift, she is able to buy items at a 50% discount. She brings stuffed animals home for Bruno, her dog (“he knows the smell of the thrift store and waits patiently for the toys to come out of my bag,” she told us), and also buys holiday decorations and knitting supplies, cookbooks, music books, and books in Spanish. She even found a working piano at the thrift store.
Bea and I decided to try our luck with thrift store shopping last weekend. First, we bagged up a few cute things that Harriet has outgrown (not necessary, but a side benefit of a trip to the thrift store). On the way to the store, we talked about what we wanted to find—the items for Bea’s character costume for spirit week/ “Read Across America” day at her school. We needed: a yellow and burgundy striped tie, a suit jacket or gray sweater, a white button-down shirt… We didn’t need a wand or a stack of books (Bea has that covered).
Can you guess who she’s dressing as?
Yep, Bea is going as Hermione Granger, and we found everything we needed at the PTA thrift shop: a white shirt, a tie, and a kid’s navy blazer (we had a gray cardigan, it turns out). All together, her costume cost $3.50.
When we got home, I drew a Gryffindor patch in marker on watercolor paper, cut it out, and basted it onto her jacket. After she’s done with this costume, we’ll remove the patch and take the jacket back to the thrift store—as Joy says, if someone buys it once, someone else will buy it again!
Or maybe I should leave the patch on? For another kid’s future Halloween costume? (Bea already has her costume planned for this year… and it is scary.)
Thanks so much to Joy McKeon, Becky Hatcher, Julie Ricker, Debbie Meyer, and all the wonderful thrift store volunteers, donors, and shoppers who make sustainable fundraising possible in our community.
