Monday, July 04, 2011

Another side of thrifting...the Squirrels volunteer

What is this thing?

It's a Swift Attacher.  Did you know that?  It's the plastic thingie that holds the price tag on clothes in a store.

For the past few months, Mama Squirrel and the two younger Squirrelings have been volunteering at a thrift store.

Why we never thought of doing it before, I don't know.  The girls have been raised on almost-weekly church sales, yard sales, and thrift shopping.  But the opportunity to volunteer never came up until this year, and we suddenly realized that even Crayons is old enough now to really help.  So the three of us now spend a couple of afternoons a month sorting and pricing clothes, books, or whatever else we're asked to help out with.

Ponytails dresses mannequins.  Mama Squirrel and Crayons load up bookshelves.  Mama Squirrel unloads garbage bags full of clothes.  Crayons cranks out sticky price tags for books, and Ponytails shoots Swift Attachers/plastic thingies through blouses and jeans.  It's a busy place and there are usually at least a few other people working in the back room, at the cash, hanging clothes, or unloading boxes outside the back door.  Plus the customers--who says homeschoolers don't get socialization?

The book corner has also been educational for Mama Squirrel in other ways...but that's a post in itself.

3 comments:

Jeanne said...

Chuckle, I was going to ask how many books you'd brought home!!

Mama Squirrel said...

Not as many as you'd think--no discounts for volunteers, and this isn't one of the rock-bottom-priced thrift stores.

But considering the price of NEW books...even a dollar or two per thrift store book isn't bad. Case in point: I brought home a paperback copy of The Elegant Universe for The Apprentice. Thrift store price was a dollar Canadian, or maybe it was two dollars, being a recent book--I don't remember. The Amazon price right now is US$9.19, discounted from US$16. The university bookstore price was $25 Canadian.

(I happened to see one there while The Apprentice and I were on an orientation visit.)

east midlands airport parking said...

You can never have too many books!