The Thrift 4 Hope club donated $540 to Buckelew Programs following their winter clothing sale, furthering the club’s goal of making a positive impact on the community.
The club collects used clothing each semester for their biannual sales, with boxes stationed in Redwood’s front office and at several off-campus locations, according to co-president senior Abby Rodler.
Buckelew Programs, which operates in Marin, Sonoma and Napa, provides mental and behavioral health and addiction services for anyone in need. According to Director of Development Katrin Ciaffa, these services range from affordable housing to a suicide prevention hotline to Teen Screen, a program that identifies mental health risk factors in youth.
According to Rodler, the club decided to donate to Buckelew Programs partly because they had heard that the charity was very organized.
“We thought that they would use our money really effectively,” Rodler said. “We [also] appreciated that they had such a broad network, that they did so many different things.”
Ciaffa said it’s not often that the organization receives donations from kids, and was honored that Thrift 4 Hope chose Buckelew Programs as their designated charity. The club was recently featured on Buckelew Programs’ website and Facebook page.
“I was blown away,” Ciaffa said. “It’s especially exciting to see our young people in Marin getting involved in the community with a mental health organization, especially with all the stigma attached to [mental health].”
Rodler said that the club, which has six or seven regular members, advertised their sale both at Redwood and on Craigslist in order to attract customers from outside of the school district.
“We want people to be interested in the club and to think of it as where their clothes should go if they are cleaning out their closets and don’t have a place to put them,” said Thrift 4 Hope co-president senior Eve Anderson.
The sales occur one Saturday per semester from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the CEA. The spring sale will take place on April 29.
“I feel most proud of the club when it’s the sale day and we see all these people come in from our community and help us make a donation,” Anderson said.
Thrift 4 Hope meets around every two to three weeks to discuss things like how to advertise and which charity to donate to, according to Anderson.
The members try to pick organizations based in the Bay Area that they have not worked with before, Rodler said.
“In the past we have repeated charities but we’ve found that we make more of an impact on the entire community if we rotate,” she said.
According to Rodler, her favorite aspect of Thrift 4 Hope is that members can incorporate their own interests into the club.
“I’m really interested in tutoring and working with families in the Canal district, and we’ve been able to donate to them and advertise to them,” Rodler said. “Meanwhile, our other co-president Eve is really interested in art, and she’s been able to use those skills to help make a brand for us. We also have kids who are really interested in fashion who help us decide what to sell [and] where to put what.”
