Finders Keepers Free Thrift Hub Gives Students Chance to Dress for Success
When The Center for Women’s Development (CWD) joined forces with the Transition Academy to open up the Finders Keepers Free Thrift Hub, Medgar Evers College students were given yet another resource in the form of a space where they could pick out new and gently used clothing. This important development came about when Lisa Evelyn, Student Life Manager of the Women’s Center, had a conversation with Dr. Waleek Boone, director of the Transition Academy.
“There are times we operate in a silo,” she said. “It just so happened he and I were having the same experience where students who may have had an accident and were maybe in need of a pair of pants or something like that were being sent over from other departments to either myself or the Transition Academy. I was doing the same thing he was doing—getting donations. [Dr. Boone] was walking down the hallway one day and saw my space. He asked what I thought about turning this into a thrift store where he could also put in his overflow of supplies. As someone who is a connoisseur of thrifting and has been doing this for a few years, I saw a need. I thought it would be good to start a thrift shop.”
For Boone, finding a partner in his longtime colleague and friend was a win-win situation that reflects the objectives of both campus organizations.
“It has been a pleasure working with the Women’s Center,” he said. “When the idea of the Thrift Hub was presented to Ms. Lisa, she was fully supportive and offered space to accommodate the clothing. Both offices are part of the Division of Student Success and share a common goal of ensuring every student achieves academic success.”
The Finders Keepers Free Thrift Hub is located in the Carroll Street building in Room M4. The space is open from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays and from 3 to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays. Students are able to come in and peruse racks of new and gently used clothing ranging from casual wear to more formal fashions like dresses, ties, dress shirts and suits that fall under job interview attire. It’s a crucial need Evelyn sees students often struggling to fulfill with a big part of the process being the removal of any sort of stigma people might be concerned with experiencing.
“Presentation means everything to me,” she said. “It would be better to present things in a way where people are just picking up clothing. You want them to have a good experience when they come in. Racks are set up where we make it more like a shopping experience instead of having them just pick items out of a bin.”
Evelyn added, “We see students with food insecurity, housing insecurity and clothing insecurity. And this was another need our students on campus had. In doing Dress for Success, we asked colleagues and friends to give us gently used and new clothing. You have to be presentable, so we touch on soft skills as well. We go into what Dress for Success means, how you should show up and what you should be wearing. Those things are not taught in the classroom, so that’s my opportunity to teach those skills outside of the classroom.”
Volunteers in the form of interns are the rocket fuel that make the Finders Keepers Free Thrift Hub run. Medgar Evers College social work major Mikerlange “Mickey” Joseph was assigned to organize and help get the hub set up, the hard work she put in came with the same kind of satisfaction this Haitian immigrant has been experiencing while pursuing her social work degree.
“While it was a little difficult to hang, fold and separate the clothes into different sizes, I’m happy to be involved with helping provide resources for anyone in need,” she said.
Also helping with the heavy lifting are Transition Academy interns Hailey Garcia and Tracy Lim. Both are seniors at Hunter College in the second year of fulfilling their internship requirement for their Bachelor’s in Social Work. Working at Finders Keepers has not only been eye-opening for the duo, but added a rich layer to the career path the two are going down.
“I wanted to get more experience with one-on-one clients, and not only one-on-one clients, but with the community, which is what the Transition Academy does,” Garcia said. “I was eager to get new experiences that I wasn’t used to, especially since with my last two internships, I worked at an elementary school and a nursing home. What’s great about Finders Keepers is that it’s about giving students a space to feel safe and feel like they can come and find clothing that they need access to. And if they need any other resources, we let them know that they also have access to things like the Transition Academy Café if you ever find yourself needing food as well. I feel like we created a space where students can come and not feel like they’re being judged.”
Lim added, “I think one of our main goals was to knock out a necessity that students would have to put funding towards. They wouldn’t have to choose between having a meal or having clean clothes. Also, actually sitting down for the first time with someone and hearing the situations students go through and their livelihood was really eye-opening. That was a first experience in helping me find the population I want to work with and the kind of field work I want to do for my career.”
Outside partners play a major role in making Finders Keepers run, none more so than Shimeek Jones-Sanders, the general store manager for the Levi’s location in Cherry Hill, NJ who is also an ambassador for her company. In that role, she and her colleagues work in outreach programs that center include donating time as well as merchandise. In the case of Finders Keepers, its in the form of off-use merchandise or irregular items. As someone born and raised in Flatbush, Jones-Sanders had an immediate connection with Medgar Evers College and was eager to work with Boone, who she’d collaborated with on a few projects in prior years.
“What I love about working with Dr. Boone are all the ideas he has and how he keeps me on my toes,” Jones-Sanders said. “I found it intriguing when he shared with me the percentage of students that are homeless and going to school. I’m always seeing what I can do to contribute to that community, even though I don’t currently live in that community.”
The role of the Finders Keepers Free Thrift Hub keeps in line with the aims of the CWD, which is to promote the self-actualization of women in pursuit of higher education by providing the direct services and programs of specialized support they need. To that end, the CWD is open to all with regard to gender, race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. Like the Transition Academy, one of CWD’s goals is to promote equal access to higher education through institutionalized support including counseling, advocacy and referrals. For Evelyn, Finders Keepers provides students the opportunity to sculpt and image that can help move them forward with future prospects.
“We teach our students that you are your billboard and it takes seven seconds for someone to judge you and seven seconds to leave a good impression,” she said. “You only get one chance to make a first impression and you don’t want to miss your opportunity.”