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After eight years working as a volunteer, Hospice Shop Warkworth’s Anne Cauty has developed a sixth sense for sorting the bundles of clothes that get donated daily and pricing the store’s inventory.
It’s an important job, which she does twice a week from 9am to 12.30pm.
When Mahurangi Matters spoke with her, she was ensconced behind a large desk in a side room at the store, surrounded by piles of various garments, stacks of labels, a price gun and tag attacher.
“We get quite a lot of good stuff in here, which is great. People often donate quality clothes. If an item has a good label, we’ll put the price up a bit. Like that Macpac gear over there,” she says.
“We get Country Road, Rodd and Gunn – all those sorts of brands.”
There’s also a ‘dollar rack’ where people can pick up a bargain.
“Clothes that have been in the shop for quite a while, they get repriced and put out there.”
Anne says they are now more particular about what they accept as some of the clothing that gets donated isn’t always washed.
“I do the smell test. Then, if something’s not clean, we say to them, ‘well if we put that in the rubbish, it’s going to cost us to dump it’. We’re not here to spend money, we’re here to raise money for hospice.”
Anne adds that she dislikes waste and loves op shops – that’s part of what attracted her to volunteering at a second-hand store in the first place.
“One of the ladies here who’s now left said, ‘oh you’d better come and work for us because you’re always in here’. So I did,” she says.
“I enjoy the company and it’s fun. We’re good therapy for each other.”
Moreover, hospice is a cause close to Anne’s heart.
“My mother-in-law died of cancer and she was looked after through hospice. So that was another push for me.”
Often volunteers at the shop have a personal connection to hospice, she says.
