Our Heart – Volunteers

If you’ve ever shopped at Gift & Thrift, we know for an absolute fact that you have encountered one of our wonderful volunteers. What’s that you say? You didn’t really interact with anyone while you were shopping? Well, truth be told, you didn’t have to talk to anyone to interact with a volunteer. Their presence is all through our store. Come, take a quick stroll through our aisles and we’ll ‘show’ you what we mean.

Let’s go in through the BookSavers entrance … Wow! Look at all those books! I like fiction…come see the selection! What’s that you say? So many choices? Well, you can thank Diane who volunteers to help those fiction shelves full! … and that’s not made up! She is as real as they come and we’re thankful for her and the other volunteers who put out the pages for us to turn!

Let’s go down the right side out of books … What’s that you say? You need a birthday card for your sister? Well then, let’s loop around and take a look at the greeting cards before we move on. You know, you can thank Margaret for this. She volunteers to make sure our greeting cards are put out and organized! Don’t they look great?!

Okay, let’s head this way and we’ll pass by … What’s that? You need a stapler and some binders for your office? Well, thanks to Bobbi who volunteers with office processing, you have plenty of options here in the Office/School department. You never know what treasure you’ll find around here … I like to come here for pens and tablets, myself.

Hey, look over there in clothing…it’s Twilla, Edie and Kathy! They came in to volunteer and organize the clothes. We know that being able to shop by color and size makes finding the perfect outfits so much easier! Thanks to the volunteers, we’re able to look good, quick! It’s a good thing too, because there’s so much store left to shop!

Let’s go over here to the Seasonal Shop, but be careful, you never know what Audrey, Eleanor, Mickey and the rest of the gang might put out that you never knew you needed! These ladies volunteer to make not just every Season better and brighter, but every day as well. I mean really…Just look at this little cat in this pumpkin! I’m certain they put this out here just to make us smile!

Ah, here we are in Housewares … glasses and dishes and frames, oh my! Okay, so you can’t see them, but through those doors there, there’s a whole other ‘world’ where the magic happens! I’ll bet right now, Jan, Bev, Grace and the others are back there sorting, washing and getting things ready to bring out here to the store. If you could see all the stuff back there, you would know it takes a village of volunteers to keep our ship afloat … and we are so thankful for our crew!

Over there is Elaine, volunteering in linens. Go ahead and wave or smile, but whatever you do, do not suggest a pillow fight! What’s that you ask? Do we sell fabric? We sure do, but we couldn’t keep up with it without Carolyn’s knowledge and willingness to volunteer! Come to think of it, her sister Marilyn volunteers with us as well, but she is in the back helping in our Thriftique department. Our Store really is family friendly!

Now, if you buy anything from Electronics while you’re here, chances are Abe or Darrell, maybe Dana or Gerald got it ready for you buy. It takes quite the team to test all the electronic items that come through our donation dock … and we are thankful for those volunteers who light up our days!

Well look! Here here comes Jim, Chris, and Betty, some of our volunteer cashiers! That must mean it’s getting close to 11:00am…our opening hour! We didn’t even make it to toys to show you Beth’s volunteer play…errr, um…work. (HeHe!) Nor did we make it to Miscellaneous Furniture to show you the skills that Donna, Dee and Harold volunteer! We simply do not have enough hours in the day to mention all of our wonderful volunteers or to tell you everything they do to help our store!

The truth is, while we truly do value our staff and their knowledge and dedication to what we do, we know it’s our volunteers who fill in the gaps and make the volume of what we do possible. The more volunteer help we have, the more we can help others; and that’s what we try to do here at Gift & Thrift.
So, thank you for strolling through the store and meeting just a few of our volunteers. We want to take this opportunity to express our gratefulness to these behind the scenes folks who pitch in to help out of the goodness of their hearts. To say we appreciate them is the understatement of the year!

Oh, and for the record, if you saw a department in the store that made you think, “I would enjoy helping with stuff like this”, drop us a line at volunteer@giftandthrift.org … we would like the opportunity to appreciate you as well!