Grace Thrifts for a Great Cause
Image provided by Matilda C. ’24 / A local thrift store.
Teenagers are one of the primary contributors to the fast fashion industry, but Mia R. ‘23 is aiming to challenge this notion within the Grace community.
On Tuesday, Apr. 12, the Thrifting Griffin opened for the first time. The Thrifting Griffin is a clothing shop run by students with the primary goal of giving clothes a second chance while donating to a good cause. Instead of buying new, cheap, poorly-made clothes, students now have the opportunity to purchase affordable, secondhand clothing.
The choices for students were endless during opening week, with clothes in a range of styles and sizes donated by faculty and students available for purchase. Mia founded the Thrifting Griffin as a club at the beginning of this year with the intention of minimizing Grace’s environmental footprint, and then decided to take that positive impact one step further and donate the proceeds to The Cancer Research Institute.
In an interview with The Grace Gazette, she explained why that cause in particular: “My family has been highly affected by cancer, which is why anything I can do to support research or help doctors get closer to discovering a cure is extremely important to me.” Several community members were inspired to sidestep the clothes and donate directly to the cause after learning where the money was going.
“We were receiving more donations than we were selling,” Mia exclaimed. “However, everything not sold this time around can be used for the next sale or donated to other thrift stores.”
The Thrifting Griffin had always been an exciting idea to Mia, but it didn’t start out as a popular project amongst her peers. “Not many people showed up to the meetings,” she lamented. “It was difficult to find a time when everyone was available to meet.”
With the abolishment of the beloved Wednesday club block in 2020, many students like Mia have found it nearly impossible to source extracurricular engagement. If it weren’t for the “support and hope for the club” from her friends that convinced Mia that the Thrifting Griffin “could be successful,” the store might not have come to fruition.
With her friends and her cause as a driving force, Mia opened up shop. By recruiting other students to run the thrift shop during their free time, the Thrifting Griffin managed to stay open for over eight hours during opening week, and Tuesday and Wednesday were the most profitable days. In short, the Thrifting Griffin proved to be wildly successful.
We hope that this is just the beginning of the Thrifting Griffin, and, after raising over $700 in the span of three days, the store’s popularity and success speak for itself.