Today I skipped my history lecture to volunteer with Devin and Amanda at Circle Thrift, run by Circle of Hope church in South Philadelphia.
We walked down the steps, and was met by a nice lady named Rachel. We told her we wanted to volunteer for a bit. It caught her plesantly off guard, and she kindly put us to work. Amanda organized the jewlery case, while Devin and I sorted and tagged clothing donations. As we chatted with Rachel, it was revealed (somewhat unsurprisingly) that she was a Messiah alum. On top of that… she’s an MCPC alum! Ta da! This having been discovered opened a very comfortable and enjoyable dialogue about life in Philly during and after MCPC.
During our 2 hours of volunteering, a very interesting and generous man made three trips down with goods to donate. First, he dropped off a few videocassettes, most of them still in the plastic wrapping. Then, he came down with what looked to be his drycleaning. Actually, it was. Two vibrant shirts (one of silk!) that he had so kindly gotten professionally cleaned before donating. A stark contrast to some of the old undershirts with yellow armpits we had been sorting through at the moment. His last bag of tricks was a bit more unconventional. After taking out a pair of shoes and a furniture slipcover, he began pulling statuettes of rabbits out of his bag.
Ceramic, wooden, colorful, kitchy, tacky rabbits.
Amanda asked if he had a rabbit collection- he said yes.
Devin asked if he was downsizing his collection- he said yes.
I didn’t do much more than coo after each one was revealed, expressing my delight and surprise.
Rachel told us we are the kind of people who would do well working at a thrift store because there are very interesting people who appear on a very consistant basis.
I will be skipping class again on Thursday to volunteer. Devin and Amanda are coming too.

www.circlethrift.com