This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 3, 2010 - Last year, when the Twice Blessed Resale Shop was just a concept, judges in the Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Competition, run through Washington University’s Skandalaris Center, halted the shop team’s bid for start-up seed money in the semifinal round.
One year later, with the store in operation and generating revenue, those behind the effort are one step closer to seeing their shop get a piece of the $150,000-plus in grant money that’s awarded through the sixth annual contest that highlights socially conscious ventures. The Twice Blessed Resale Shop aims to develop a sustainable revenue stream for the nonprofit Our Lady’s Inn, which serves homeless pregnant women and their children. The store is among seven finalists. The leaders of all of those teams must present a final business plan to judges by mid-April.
First a bit of background. Our Lady’s Inn was founded in 1982 as an anti-abortion organization that provides emergency shelter and access to support services to pregnant women who want to carry their pregnancy to term.
“In the early days people would go to abortion clinics and counsel with women, who frequently said they felt like they didn’t have a choice – parents, girlfriends, boyfriends were saying, 'Get the abortion or else,'" said Gloria Lee, executive director of Our Lady’s Inn. “Some of our founders saw a need for a home where if a woman wanted to carry her baby to term she could.”
Our Lady’s Inn is part of the LifeLine Coalition of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and is supported directly by a range of churches. The organization can, at one time, serve 18 families in its South St. Louis location and 15 at its St. Charles center.
The shop has been open since last May at 3302 Meramec St. (Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday). Our Lady's Inn has long received a variety of in-kind donations that it can’t use right away. The idea is to take the higher-end items that might not be used by clients and sell them at thrift store prices to window shoppers. Jeans go for as little as $4; jackets can be $20 or less.
Lucy Hannegan, manager of the shop, said she gets plenty of donation offers from the public. Popular items include women’s and children’s clothing, shoes, purses and jewlery. All of what’s sold inside the store are donated items. Proceeds from sales go toward the organization’s operating budget.
The shop is also a place where people who are staying at the Inn can volunteer. “The idea is not only to raise revenue but to train clients in basic job skills,” Hannegan said. “We consider the store the public face of Our Lady’s Inn. Most people don’t know that there’s a shelter around the corner. We’re a well-kept secret.”
Hannegan said former clients who are now living in permanent housing also come to the shop to browse. The inventory includes bracelets and other items that women who stay at the Inn make to sell. Every season the shop has a large sale, and then new merchandise comes in -- what's not sold is donated to other agencies.
Hannegan said that if the shop wins some of the contest prize money, she'll start looking for a bigger location so she can put out more inventory. In her second time around pitching her venture to the judges, she said she's been helped by the fact that she now has more than nine months of managing experience under her belt.