Written by Elena Mamadnazarova, Community Development Director
Adelante Thrift was launched with the mission to serve our community by providing quality, affordable merchandise,job training, and ultimately use its proceeds for other community development initiatives.
Not long ago, Wyandotte Municipal Court approached the store with the proposal for Adelante Thrift to partner with their community service worker program. The store was picked as a place where people who have committed misdemeanors can complete their court ordered community service hours. To say this partnership is easy would be hypocritical. One thing that was clear for our staff is that the people who come to the store to complete their community service hours might not share the mission and vision of the store. The nature of the service for these people differs from the traditional volunteers that the store recruits. This relationship between the store and community service workers is very contractual, with a very limited understanding of the stores role in the community. Those were the characteristics and the complexities that Adelante Thrift recognized when entering this partnership. At the same time, this partnership was viewed as another way to engage with the people from our community. In order to accomplish the mission of Adelante Thrift, we highly depend on the service of volunteers to keep our costs low, to expand capacities, and create a tangible experience; working together for the common purpose of community transformation. By relying so heavily on volunteers, Adelante Thrift is in a constant state of exploring ways to bring the help it needs to operate to its full potential. The community service program is one of the ways the store receives its volunteers. For almost a year, Adelante Thrift has been partnering with the Municipal Court of Wyandotte and Johnson counties for their court-appointed community service workers program. By being able to receive the community service workers, it helped the store with much needed extra hands to sort and clean donations to stock the store. Each community service worker receives the necessary work, orientation and agreement of the regular scheduled time needed to complete the hours sanctioned by the court.
Adelante Thrift can attest to partnering with some of the hardest working service people. Our hope is that Adelante Thrift is a safe and welcoming environment where people serving their hours can be treated with dignity and respect and can potentially learn new skills, gain structure, discipline, and turn their lives around.
Current Needs:
- If you would like to give to Mission Adelante this holiday season through donating items, check out our Amazon Wish List for some practical needed items to make our mission possible, www.amazon.com/missionadelantewishlist. While you are on the Amazon website, you can help out Mission Adelante by choosing us as your charity of choice through Amazon Smile. smile.amazon.com
Important Dates:
- Adelante Thrift will be hosting a Christmas Fun Day for Kids. There will be games, crafts and cookie decorating!!! December 10 12 - 2 pm. Each child will receive a stuffed animal and/or book. Check out the Adelante Thrift Facebook page for more information. www.facebook.com/adelantethrift.