Terra Linda High Students Run Successful Pop-up Store

This past Saturday 11/15 at Davidson Middle School in San Rafael, Terra Linda High School’s, MarinSEL (www.thesel.org) program for the first time ran a ‘pop-up store’ to benefit Marin’s homeless and low income citizens. The students collected donations from the community and were able to hand them out to the needy who visited the one day store. The Ritter Center (www.rittercenter.org) and San Rafael’s Downtown Streets Team (www.streetsteam.org) also played big rolls in making the day a success. The Ritter Center publicized the event with their clientele, and the Streets Team helped with the operation of the store and getting the word out in the street during the event.

I learned about the pop-up store from the following article in the Marin IJ Sunday paper six days before: http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_26904004/terra-linda-high-school-teens-create-pop-up

After reading the article I had an idea. Earlier in the year the topic of haircuts for the homeless came up several times with the Downtown Streets Team. It’s particularly important for the members of the Streets Team to look good because unlike the typical homeless stereotype many of them are trying to get hired for full time jobs and attain self sufficiency. The idea of making free haircuts available had been a good one, but with so much on our plates it just hadn’t happened yet. As fate would have it I  a talented local hair stylist, Marissa Englund. I approached Marissa about the idea of doing haircuts at the pop-up store and she was excited about helping! The Ritter Center had helped Marissa recently and she thought it was a great opportunity to give back to the community.

So I approached the Streets Team and the Ritter Center about adding Marissa’s services to the day and I was delighted when they said ’yes‘ and directed me to coordinate with Teagan Leonhart, the Terra Linda High English teacher responsible for coordinating the event with her students. Teagan did an incredible job managing the project that was not part of the regular school curriculum but just as important as any lesson learned in classrooms.

Watching the students in action during the pop-up store operation I couldn’t help but think that Teagan had done something really special with her students. She was helping mold them into what I like to think of as social entrepreneurs. These kids are our future and I can’t wait to see what great things they’ll accomplish in the years to come.

There was so much enthusiasm on the morning of the event. The students had done an amazing job setting up the store and getting ready for business. The store hours were scheduled for 10am-2pm and when the store opened I was a little nervous about seeing many volunteers and few customers. I talked to Teagan about maybe going to Saint Vincent’s (www.vinnies.org) and spreading the word. A contingent of the Streets Team was sent out to try to find customers, and after helping attract Marissa’s first customer to her chair I drove over to Vinnies.

I was nervous entering Vinnies. In social setting I like to think of myself as shy, but in reality it‘s fear. I’ve kind of got a social anxiety issue that I’ve always dealt with and learned to overcome when necessary. Walking into Vinnies, looking around at the people eating at tables I had to push back my phobia and start talking.

“Did you know they're giving away clothes down at Davidson Middle School today? It’s going on until 2pm and there is lots of great stuff!” Like always, I just had to get rolling and after the first table where I was greeted with a smile my fear disappeared. From table to table I went, promoting the pop-up store and of course mentioning the stylist Marissa. After canvassing the entire population I headed out into the streets and looked for more potential customers. I found several who were grateful to learn about the event.

Later I headed back to the pop-up store to see how things were going. Davidson is only about six blocks from Vinnies I was very happy to see a number of people I had spoke with had come over! Vinnies turned out to be our best source for generating customers. The Streets Team, Colin McDonnell from the Ritter Center and I all made frequent trips to Vinnies throughout the store hours to make sure everyone knew.

Meanwhile Marissa was doing a brisk business as well. I was a little worried about having her as the only stylist because I didn’t know how many people would want cuts. She handled it very well though and was able to do everyone who wanted a cut.

When the event was all said and done the students ended up exceeding their customers served goal. More important than the clothing they received, the customers walking through the store knew that the students cared for them and that the community was taking care of them. The students and their teacher Teagan had done a great thing. They created something wonderful where there was nothing before, helping out people who needed help the most.