WASL - First Impressions

Hello everyone!

So I had my first volunteer shift with The Working Centre yesterday, so as promised, here I am blogging about it! I would also like to note that this is my 5th attempt to write this thing, so BEWARE!...

So again, I am working with a project called Worth a Second Look (WASL from now on). The store is a “furniture and housewares” outlet with a goal “to provide the community with low-cost used furniture and assorted houseware items while keeping reusable goods out of landfills and creating opportunities for employment”. They even provide pick-up and delivery services to increase availability of goods.

As you can tell, I don’t blog very much... mostly since I just feel like I don’t have too many interesting things to say. So, before yesterday, I was having dreams of (well maybe that’s a little extreme, but I was actually looking forward to) blogging after volunteering at WASL. I thought finally I am going to have something to say! I have read many of my fellow BBer blogs and they have all expressed an abundance of love for their new projects with The Working Centre. As much as I would love to share their enthusiasm, I’ve got some more thinking to do.

WASL has an ENORMOUS range of items available for purchase. They’ve got electronics, furniture, household necessities, health products and toys for young children. And, all of these items are more than generously priced. When I walked in and had my tour, I felt pretty optimistic... it looked like there were so many important items for sale that people could really take advantage of.

So I spent the first half of my shift stocking. I would obtain a basket with newly priced items in it and it was my job to place these items on their appropriate shelf. As I continued to shelf item after item, my mood began to sour. More than half of the items I shelved could be classified as “Garage sale dust collectors”. There were too many figurines and non-essential items to count. What was more distressing is that I would put an item on the shelf that I thought would NEVER sell, and I would turn around and it would be gone. Literally, this stuff is FLYING off the shelves! Now you might be wondering, and rightly so, why in the world this would bother me. Well... I was finding that people who obviously were facing financial hardships were coming in and spending what little money they had on items that were unimportant. For instance, there was a man who explained to me that he had been living on the streets of Kitchener for the winter. He wished to buy a gold-fish net that was marked at $0.75, but he only had 71 cents. After MUCH bartering with the owner, he purchased the net with all the change he had. I was left speech-less... and those of you who know me know that I’m not often left without words. I couldn’t understand what I was doing there... or how my contributions were helping anyone... all I could see was that I was stocking shelves with half junk and half useful things, and only the junk was being sold.

With my crippling optimism, I decided to take a lunch and try to, more effectively, think about what was going on in the store.

Refreshed, I went back to work and started working at the register. Here, I found that much of my first impressions remained... however, there were a few cases that kept me positive. There was a father who was interested in purchasing a dresser for his daughter’s birthday, but didn’t have the voucher yet to make the purchase. The dresser was put on hold for him, and now thanks to WASL, his daughter will get a very nice dresser for her birthday. Also, there was a young couple – late teens – who entered with their baby. Obviously facing some hard times, the couple was able to purchase a microwave for $1.75, along with some children’s movies, books and blankets.
So now, I am still left with mixed reviews, needing more time to volunteer and figure out how to appropriately reflect on this all. I had a great talk with Joanne who helped me understand that it is important to be in situations like this... situations that are unfamiliar/conflict with our natural processing of life. She helped me understand that, for starters, many customers may be living with a very different mindset as me... they may not be able to evaluate the difference between having food for the day to having a gold-fish net. We also tossed around ideas about what different groups of people may consider luxuries, the need for control, and more. I plan to explore more of these ideas as I continue volunteering. I will also be looking into the philosophy of WASL and how their volunteers play an integral part in this philosophy.

So to sum up this LONG post (congratulations if you’ve made it through this whole thing, and DOUBLE congrats if you’ve understood anything in it!) I am still looking forward to volunteering at WASL. I know there is something really important to learn from this all; it just might take me a little longer to sort it out. In the meantime, feel free to browse the WASL websites on the right hand side.

PEACE!