Carrying a wide array of items ranging from jackets to dresses, the first official thrift sale at Andover took place in the form of a pop-up shop at Suzie’s on Friday. Organized by PA Thrift, the club’s goal was to engage the Andover community with sustainability in fashion.
PA Thrift board members Allie Encarnacion ’23, Gabby Edopka ’24, and Langston Reid ’24 spent multiple weeks preparing for the pop-up shop. The club collaborated with three other organizations on campus—Andover Business Club, The Wings Initiative, and The Andover Edition—to advertise, fund, and provide clothing for the sale.
“It was a very collaborative event, and it definitely served its purpose in engaging the community—making sure to give back, and combining interest of all three clubs,” said Encarnacion.
The goal of the thrift shop was to have a fun and casual way to educate the community about sustainability. According to Edopka, fast fashion has been making its way up the hierarchy in mainstream media and become a relevant issue holding our climate at stake.
“Fast fashion, that topic’s been very prominent in social media as of recently, and so I think educating the community on how sustainability factors into fashion and our club was one of our goals for this year. And so we figured that a thrift shop would be a great way to introduce that aspect to the community,” said Edopka.
The thrift shop has been in the works for nearly a year. According to Reid, Chris Wong ’24, a member of The Wings Initiative, came up with the original idea for the pop-up, and it took the work of three clubs to collaborate together to bring the shop to fruition.
“Last year, my roommate, Chris, actually ended up having tons and tons of clothes in our dorm because he had people donate them to him. He knew that this vision wanted to happen in the future, but he definitely wanted to take steps prior to make that happen…it was definitely time, and energy, and communication that made it happen,” said Reid.
Reid felt that the overall goal and message of the three clubs was accomplished. They raised money to donate to sustainability organizations while simultaneously engaging with the Andover community about sustainability and fast fashion.
“It made our hearts really smile, we were so happy to see everybody come [and] support us. The idea that we might be able to do this again, raising more money to donate to even more sustainable organizations in order to raise more awareness is definitely something we’ll pursue in the future,” said Reid.
