Dreaming of a community impact
When Slow & Steady was still a dream yet to be brought into reality, it started out as a dream of a non-profit. I (Natalie, founder) dreamed of using my love for thrifted clothing to make a huge impact in our DFW community.
Being raised in the Pacific Northwest, sustainability and environmental mindfulness has practically been bred into me. When I first came to Dallas several years ago, one of things I noticed was the abundance of non-trash items that get thrown into dumpsters. It wasn’t long before I realized why - DFW has so much going on! With an abundant workforce and plenty of social scenes, there simply isn’t time to drive 20 minutes across town just to drop off a few items of clothing that no longer fit. It wasn’t long before I found myself simply throwing items away also.
So what do we do about this??
Well… I thought “what if someone could come pick. items up?” So thus the idea of starting a donation collection formed!
As I continued to form this “brain-child,” I came across a book called “Paying it Forward” by Josh Littlejohn. In this book, Littlejohn discusses how he build a social enterprise that ultimately helped the homeless population of Scotland tremendously. Before this book, I knew I wanted to help with DFW’s homeless crisis, but I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. “Paying it Forward” sparked many ideas, and inspired weeks of research to begin on DFW’s specific needs regarding homelessness. Having previously volunteered in adjacent ministries, I knew where to start, but wasn’t sure if these organizations would actually want to partner, or if they just needed volunteers. Well, a few emails later and I realized that these shelters and outreach programs want as much help as they can get - through volunteers or partnerships.
So I knew that there was a need for a thrift store to partner with homeless outreach programs. Why choose a social enterprise model and not a charity?
Since this company started as a one-man (woman) show, the complexities of a non-profit organization made it a daunting task for one person and would have taken close to a year to organize before we could accept donations.
With a sense of urgency to begin helping our community as soon as possible, I decided to go the social enterprise route.
How is Slow & Steady Thrift planning to help the homeless population of DFW?
To start, we have committed to providing resources to three organizations that directly impact the homeless population of DFW. At the time this is being written, only one formal partnership has been formed, with Safe Families, but we have also committed to providing resource donations to Our Calling and The Bridge. As business grows, we will begin offering financial contributions as well.
Some things we are dreaming of
It is a dream to be able to provide private, free shopping opportunities for those in need. Something that is often stripped from those who are in more vulnerable positions such as those who are homeless or experiencing poverty, is their ability to choose. While there is a sense of gratefulness for whatever is donated to them, they very rarely are able to choose their own items for themselves. Slow & Steady Thrift dreams of being able to hand some autonomy back to people in these situations by allowing them to shop for their clothing themselves at no cost to them.
We also dream of hosting charity events where 100% of the profits will benefit community-chosen charities. We are confident that with a little facilitating, our community can rally around a common cause and create a large impact in the community.
While these dreams are not yet at our fingertips, Slow & Steady Thrift is taking steps every day to work towards them while also creating as large of an impact as possible in the meantime.
If you would like to help us on our mission, please consider donating some of your gently used clothing. We’ll make it easy on you by coming to pick it up!
