Alumni Focus
Thrift shops get help
All across the country Marquette alumni gather together every April to serve their communities. In Chicago there are plenty of philanthropic outlets to choose. But two re-sale shops, Nifty Thrifty and Nearly New, that generate funds for Daughters of Charity outreach centers on the north and west sides, won the affection of the Marquette Club of Chicago.
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National Service Day is Saturday, April 21
Marquette Club of Chicago’s extreme makeover of a resale shop is National Service Day in action. Club president Colleen Boraca, Comm ’99; Patty Davis (center) shop manager; and Joshua Hale, Comm ’95.
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“It’s not just a matter of helping the stores but the entire community — they are in an area that needs assistance, and the Marquette Club of Chicago really stepped up,” says Stacy Mitz, a Marquette alumni relations officer.
Back in 2005, Josh Hale, Comm ’95, community outreach chair for the club, organized a painting and cleaning project for the Nearly New shop. Patty Davis, who helps manage both re-sale shops, was impressed.
“I’ve been doing this kind of charity work for 11 years. The Marquette folks were different,” she says.
When it came time for the Chicago Club to help clean up Nifty Thrifty for National Service Day 2006, Davis got to know Kent West. And her esteem for the club — and for Marquette — skyrocketed.
West, Jour ’82, who owns Colony Display, arrived with a team of employees and three 54-foot trucks chock full of retail display fixtures no longer needed by his customers. The re-sale shop that once displayed merchandise on top of old, donated furniture, now had gleaming, professional-quality racks and shelves. It was beyond what any of the other Marquette alumni, much less Davis, expected.
“We were blown away,” says Hale. “It was just phenomenal to see the transformation of the store.”
Marquette even supplanted Davis’ previous No. 1 volunteer source: Notre Dame University. “I’ve always said that Notre Dame sends us the best volunteers, but I can’t say that anymore,” Davis says. “The Marquette people did so much for us and worked so hard — now they’re the best I’ve ever seen.”
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