FEBRUARY 2025
THRIFT VOLUNTEER NEWSLETTER
Keeping our valued volunteers informed
GM’s Corner Here we are into the last two months of the fiscal year. It has been quite the year with donations being low in the summer and then our focus on ensuring that items donated get to the floor as quickly as possible. We are very pleased to say that we have surpassed the $1,000,000 sales mark in the shop and are heading in the right direction for the end of the year. You may see that once I think of a theme for the newsletter article, I connect with my friend Google and search out quotations and themes to help enhance my writing. For this month I thought I would search out love and volunteerism. There were pages and pages to review and I was so lucky there is enough to fill a few newsletters but I won’t. The quotation that I discovered many years ago when visiting upstate New York at the National Women’s Rights National Historical Park was: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead. This quotation was a guiding light to me for so many years. Others quotations that are worth sharing are: • Helping others can boost your happiness! According to one study, happiness levels rose by 12% for those who volunteer every two to four weeks. • “Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. • “The purpose of life is not to be happy, but to matter—to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.” – Leo Rosten
• “If you want to touch the past, touch a rock. If you want to touch the present, touch a flower. If you want to touch the future, touch a life.” – Author Unknown
• “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” – Mother Teresa The following statistic helps to share a good indication of why volunteering is valuable in your life: What if volunteering didn’t just make your life better in all sorts of amazing ways, but it also made it longer? One study of active 90- and 100-year olds published on BigThink.com showed that those who remain devoted to a purpose in life live longer and happier. It might not be the secret to eternal life, but who wouldn’t want to potentially live a longer and happier life? So, in addition to the shop successes, volunteering helps to lengthen your happy life. What wonderful news this is! Thank you once again for all that you do, and in this month of LOVE, we want to share our love and gratitude for your time and talents that are shared each and every day. Blessings on a fantastic February.
Debbie Siertsema General Manager MCC Thrift & Gift