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From The Observer News
(www.observernews.net) Top Stories By Penny Fletcher
Yes, like the clothes in the song, most of the clothes in the new Ruskin shop have been previously worn, but they’re anything but tawdry. In fact, while interviewing there, I ended up buying a pair of Capri pants and a sparkly silver evening blouse. The brainchild of Laurie Kepler and Jan Falcione, the woman’s shop opened April 1 to engage in dual purposes: teaching job skills and offering bargains to the community. Laurie, the executive director, and Jan, the community resource manager for the Mary and Martha House shelter for homeless and abused women and their children, host a plethora of programs to help the shelter guests get back on their feet. One of these is a Mary and Martha House Thrift Store adjacent to its main office on First St. S.E. in Ruskin (turn right off U.S. 41 at the traffic light between the two bridges) that sells used clothing, household items and furniture. Things donated to this store are available to be bought by residents and are also used to help the families in the shelter who may have nothing but the clothes on their backs when they arrive. But Jan, who until recently owned her own woman’s clothing store and has spent a lifetime in fashion, got the idea of separating out the clothing women could wear to job interviews and offices when she closed her Sun Point shop and donated the remainder of its contents.
The two women, with the help of volunteers, decided a “boutique thrift shop” could not only raise funds but also be a training ground for women to learn to dress for interviews and gain work skills including stocking, washing and pressing the clothing, maintaining the store and selling to customers. They call the program offered to the women, Dress for Success, but it teaches them a whole lot more. “God must have been smiling on us,” Jan said when I visited the store June 15. “I had (display) racks from my store, and somebody donated a glass showcase. There was a beautiful glass table with a tiny chip on one end at the Thrift Store, and well- we already owned this vacant building.” Not to belittle all their hard work, Jan still described opening the store as “everything just falling into place like it was the right thing to do at the time.” A washer and dryer were installed and Jan has a room with a sewing machine and equipment where she does alterations for a nominal fee. The property, which is one block east of the U.S. 41 and Shell Point Road intersection in the building so long occupied by The Observer News, is very visible in the community and has been chosen as the next building to be painted with a mural by the South Shore Arts Council. The first was the mural painted on the south end of the strip of buildings in Thriftway Plaza behind the Ruskin Post Office. “Everything is really falling into place and we’re excited because we’re going to be able to do a lot of things for the community besides just sell them great clothes at a bargain,” Jan said. There will be opportunities for the women in both the shelter, and in Mary and Martha’s Transitional Housing Program, to obtain clothing for interviews and learn job skills, and also for high school students to earn the community service hours they need to gain college scholarships. Women who come into the shelter with low self-esteem can get comfortable in the working world and earn job references, while the other side of the coin is that everyone in the community can get great bargains there. The store even stocks gowns and prom dresses that cost between $10 and $40, enabling girls to attend junior and senior proms that may have had to stay home because of the hundreds of dollars gowns cost in department stores. I even saw some wedding dresses. Shopping at Second Hand Rose has the feel of a department store because of Jan’s past experience in fashion. Instead of standing in a chain store aisle wondering how long it will be before you can summon help or get into a fitting room, many areas at Second Hand Rose have been designed to look and feel like fancy department stores, with chairs, end tables, couches, pillows, paintings and flower arrangements. And there’s never a lack of changing space because of the building’s several bathrooms and other private places set up with mirrors. A decorative selection scattered throughout the store, of jewelry, hats and scarves, along with occasional packages of lotions and other feminine effects, exude an artistic flair. “Once the Arts Council does our mural, we’ll fit right in with the arts theme here,” Jan said. An Arts Festival is slated to take place in that plaza in October. © Copyright 2008 by The Observer News Publications and M&M Printing |
