When I was in San Francisco during the 80s I was in my punk rock phase and my very favorite Thrift Store was a Purple Heart near Mission and Duboce. I found clothes to shred to go with my black leather jacket and Docs as well as jeans and clothes to wear to work.
I also had a Goodwill Store I liked.
Even then I sort of tried to avoid the Sallies… Part of growing up with labor pink diapers and a political education by Pete Seeger, The Weavers and Woody Guthrie. I always remember Joe Hill and the songs of the I.W.W. regarding the Salvation Army.
In LA I continued to patronize the Goodwill Stores and a chain called Out of the Closet which helped finance AIDS project LA.
So after I posted a thing last week about the Salvation Army I was wondering what I could find to balance it out.
Then I came across the following:
Goodwill thrives at San Francisco thrift store
From SF Gate: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/11/28/national/a094415S53.DTL#ixzz16hdieDFE
By LISA LEFF, Associated Press
So when a prime piece of commercial real estate languished vacant in the predominantly gay Castro district, activists and city officials saw an opportunity to put a dent in the problem. The result is the nation’s first Goodwill, and perhaps the first store of any kind, designed as a jobs program for workers whose genders are different from the ones they had at birth.
Seven of the shop’s nine employees are transgender, most of them women who used to be men. Like the donated merchandise they collect and sell, all are looking for new lives. They were referred to Goodwill by the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative, a nonprofit training and employment service that also places workers with Macy’s, Trader Joe’s, Bank of America and other supportive companies.
Complete article at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/11/28/national/a094415S53.DTL#ixzz16pVtELlV
11/30/2010 at 11:48 pm
Luckily, the SA left Bowling Green some years ago, so I have no problem boycotting them.
My ex-sister-in-law’s mom was the store manager there for some years, and she always made sure to take all of the best clothes and toys for her granddaughters before they were put on the racks and shelves.