IMPACT Thrift!

Wow, what a day. As well as being my 35th birthday, it was also the best day of the trip so far. I have learnt so much from the organisation I visited today it's hard to know where to start, so I'll split it into a couple of posts while I try to gather my thoughts...



Birthday lunch treat - thanks Paul!

Impact Thrift Stores is a non profit organisation, who's profits are split between 18 charities working both within the US and abroad. Around 70% of these are faith based groups.
I have had the pleasure of spending the day with the Director of Business Development, Jo Greenawalt. We had exchanged quite a few emails in the run up to my trip so it felt like I already knew her. She was warm, hospitable and ready to help in any way possible, which meant I knew it was going to be a cracking day ahead when we met first thing this morning.

As well as a tour of the warehouse (I'll tell you more about that later), in the morning I was able to listen to a brief presentation, at the Impact team meeting, from two of the charities who benefit from the funds Impact raise. Bethany Christian Services (supporting adoption and fostering) and Chariots for Hope (who operate a network of children's homes in Kenya). It was great to see immediately the far reaching benefits of the precious funds Impact raise for their charities. Any perception that there is any less passion or enthusiasm at Impact thrift because the charities benefitting do not 'belong' to Impact would be completely misguided. It was clear throughout the day that both Jo and CEO Paul Baur, who I also spent time with, shared a deep passion for the charities they support which drives Impact forward, I can only assume this is the same for many others within the organisation too.

The warehouse - well, what can I say? Let's just say it's best described as 'the mother of all thrift store warehouses'! Thousands upon thousands of square feet of space, running what felt to me like a silky smooth logistical operation to support their 4 department store sized retail spaces.  

Impact operate a fully centralised warehouse system, meaning they remove all donations from stores, sort, price, clean and repackage them centrally and return them to each store 'just in time'. Each store gets at least one delivery and collection of the equivalent of a container every day, some get two per day. I can hear the fantastic Mercy in Action warehouse staff quivering from here! Over 90 employees work from the central warehouse over 3 daily shifts, so I promise if we ever get that big we will employee more people okay?

To give you an idea of the scale of the Impact warehouse operations here are a few pictures. 

One of the four big vans being unloaded this morning, it will be full again with the store delivery by late afternoon.

Clothing Area - rough sorting goes on in the main warehouse, before moving below for final sorting, pricing and tagging. Then moved onto Z-rails below for transferring directly to stores:

 



Bric-a-brac Area (where items are sorted into categories, cleaned and repacked - like us they have trouble keep up with this area at times forcing $2 store sales to clear unwanted backlog)

INCOMING...just one of the several bric-a-brac aisles, this is a portion of one days' incoming donations. Gulp.

You vintage savy followers were not forgotten during my tour by the way. I discovered the accessories department where this impressive pile of vintage purses and bags were awaiting an expert eye for pricing. Many of the higher value items are put into silent auction in the stores where customers can bid on them. Once an item has gone 7 days without a bid, the highest bidder has won. A great system that gains top prices for items otherwise easily looked over in these huge stores.  

 



























I also discovered some fabulous lamps having an overhaul from Art (one of the few but faithful volunteers at the warehouse), in the electrical department:

As well as all of this, there is a jewellery department and caged area for secure storage, furniture store and cleaning areas and a large book area where books are either priced for stores or sent to Amazon who list and ship books on behalf on Impact, and an essential large staff break area. The Impact offices are adjoining the warehouse.

Ok, enough for now, I'm meant to be celebrating the last couple of hours of my birthday! More tomorrow about the four Impact Stores and their CSR and community & education programs...check back again soon.