On Mondays, from 4-7, and Fridays, from 12-4, I volunteer at Housing Works Thrift Shop at Gramercy. Partly for school requirements, partly for experience, and partly for the satisfaction of doing a good deed.
Today, or should I say yesterday (because it is 12:30 AM), I volunteered at Housing Works, helping prepare the store for the big Best of Fall Event tomorrow/today. At the store, I bumped into none other than my friend, Masha. What a coincidence! A small world this is. But getting back to my focus…
So, the store was closed today for preparation. (See photo below.)
Photo Courtesy of Me
I, being the special person that I am, got to crawl underneath the gate and walk into the store, much to the confusion of passer-bys. Hehe.
In the store, I opened bags of delivered clothing! Then, for almost two hours, Masha and I re-colorized all the clothing in the back room. That means, we sorted all the clothing on the rack by a color spectrum, which I have memorized. Black, white, tan, brown, gray, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, magenta, purple. Boo-yaw. But after two hours of sorting, we began over-thinking the colors. And soon, we couldn’t tell the difference between blue and gray. And tan and gray. And brown and green. (Have you ever played a game so much that when you close your eyes, you keep seeing the game in your head? Yup, I’m scared that tonight, when I go to sleep, I’ll see myself sorting clothing by colors.)
After sorting clothing, we took a small break. Had some pizza, whose crust was very…umm, I still haven’t discovered the right word to describe it. Sort of chewy and stiff. But not hard. Like an impossible-to-rip piece of meat. Picture me with one side of the crust in between my teeth, and my fingers tugging on the other end. :D
Then, I had my first experience with “visual merchandising.” Masha and I stuffed handbags and luggages to make them nice and plump for viewing. After we did that, we had to organize them on the shelves so that the display would look FABULOUS. Our Manager Erica complimented our work, but I think I need a lot more experience and lessons in visual merchandising. However, it’s something I wouldn’t mind learning more about. Hope to do it again soon!
Here are some pictures of Masha leaving the shop.
Just look at that intricate process!
Goodnight Housing Works!
