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Culturally Speaking: The South Florida Sunday Podcast
Dress for Success of the Palm Beaches Pop-Up Sale
00:08:01
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- [00:00]
A
Good morning and welcome to South Florida Sunday. We're here to discuss Dress for Success Palm Beaches. And to that end, our guest is Rhonda Russell, who is the co chair of the Dress for Success Pop up sale which is coming up on May 1st and 2nd. Welcome to the show, Rhonda.
- [00:19]
B
Well, thank you very much. Thank you for having me.
- [00:22]
A
Our pleasure. All right, for those who may not know about the organization, can you share the mission of Dress for Success Palm Beaches and how it supports women in our community beyond providing just professional attire?
- [00:34]
B
Sure. The purpose of Dress for Success is to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing global network of support, workplace attire, career skills and tools to success. Dress to Success Palm Beaches is one of nearly 130 global network members in some 15 countries. We opened our doors in Palm Beach county in 2010 and since then have assisted more than 8,000 women in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties. Our signature wardrobing program provides a head to toe outfit for the job interview and then a full week's work attire. Upon employment, clients are assigned a personal stylist who helps them with their clothing and accessory selections. It's always uplifting and transformative experience that instills newfound confidence and a sense of self worth. We like to say more than the dress though. We also offer job readiness courses, mentoring and career coaching soft free of charge. This includes help with developing or perfecting a resume, honing interview skills, leveraging the Internet sites such as Indeed and LinkedIn and also now we work with ChatGPT, our road to success program. It's an intensive six week course, also provides participants with a personal image session where they're treated to makeup from Ultra Beauty and a professional head and shoulder photo for their online job search. Participants are also paired with a volunteer mentor for support throughout the process. Again, this is no charge. The clients we serve are referred from more than 80 leading social service agencies and they include newly divorced people, former incarcerated, those in recovery from addiction, domestic abuse, survivors, Florida newcomers, recent high school graduates, returnees to the workforce following an illness or as caregivers to others. And we're also seeing a lot of participants looking to change careers now or update their tech skills with the advent of ChatGPT or I should say AI.
- [02:37]
A
Wow, that's all encompassing. You really cover it all. So Rhonda, as co chair of the Pop Up Sale, what inspired you to get involved with the event and why is it such an important fundraiser for Dress for Success Palm Beaches?
- [02:51]
B
Well, I'm a volunteer on the merchandise team. We are the Ones that take in the donations of clothing on Thursdays. And I've had a long, extensive career in retail, so I recognized it was an opportunity to greatly increase our sales. Sales setup, service and preparation is key whenever we have a sale. We've been hosting Pop up sales since 2015, a wonderful outcome of the generosity of the community and an overload of clothing donations with styles that are not quite workplace appropriate or meeting the criteria of what we need for women in the workplace workforce. It's a great way to also introduce success to a larger audience. We just get so many wonderful items from people that, you know, maybe they're at leisure or maybe after five items that we just, you know, of course our clients aren't going to use those, but we find another use for them. I've been co chairing the sale since 2022. We host at least two times a year and stage it in our headquarters and Green Acres at the Riverbird Center.
- [03:56]
A
Okay, Rhonda, well, walk us through the details of the upcoming Pop up sale, when and where it's happening, what shoppers can expect to find, and how the proceeds directly benefit the organization's programs.
- [04:08]
B
Okay. The upcoming spring edition of Pop up is next Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2. Friday we open at 10am until 12 noon. It's called Fert's Dibs, which means the shop has paid $25 donation admission fee at the door to have advantage of getting these to the bargains first. We do, however, let Our top annual 1000 or more circle of impact owners shop, this time at no fee. Then from 12 to 7, there's no charge. It's like a party. We have so many. We have eight dressing rooms, so there's plenty of places to try things on. Everybody comes with their friends. On Saturday, we're open from 10 to 5 with no fee. We set up shop in our headquarters at Riverbridge center, which is at 6836 Forest Hill Boulevard in Green Acres. It's a southwest corner of Jog Road and Forest Hills. We're next to crunch, jam and 5 below. The prices are insanely low. Favorite everyday brands of tops, pants, skirts, shoes, handbags and accessories are $5. Dresses, jackets, blazers and sweaters are 10. Suits and outerwear are 15. In the community where designer and better brand names prevail, prices are a tad higher. For example, we have St. John, Escada, Lily, Pulitzer, Amani handbags and clothing and the items go from between 25 and $35. All the money that we raise go to the programs for The Road to Success program that I said, the six week program, I believe that's about a $5,000 expense per person. So any money that we raise goes to any of the programs that we have.
- [05:48]
A
That's really fantastic that you're helping people out on such a high quality level. For somebody considering attending, donating or getting involved for the first time, what would you say is the biggest impact they can make by supporting the pop up sale?
- [06:01]
B
Come early. Bring your friends. We have regulars who are waiting in line well before we open at 10. I believe we had about 25, 30 people waiting in line last time. They know that there's extraordinary bargains. We do accept cash and checks and of course you can pay by credit card. But all the purchases are subject to 2.7% processing fee and all purchases are subject to 7% sales tax. And of course all the sales are final. But you know, I think people sometimes are turned off of 2% processing fee. It's $2.70 on $100. So it's like nothing. So many shoppers will stop up or round up their purchases with an added monetary donation, but which we're deeply grateful. We acknowledge their generosity and we have post it notes that we put up with their names on the at the wall checkout. We request please don't bring any clothing for donations during the sale because it would be impossible for us to process them. But if they want to contribute in the future they can make an appointment online for just a success. Palmbeach.org or calling 561-249-Thursdays of the day we accept clothing donations.
- [07:12]
A
Well Rhonda Russell, again you are the co chair of the Dress for Success Pop up sale. It's all part of Dress for Success Palm Beaches and we appreciate you being here today with us and hopefully it will inspire some people to both take advantage of it and contribute donate. Give us that website and phone number one more time.
- [07:32]
B
It is Dress a Success
- [07:36]
A
and the
- [07:36]
B
phone number phone number is 561-249-3898. And the green Acres at the River Bridge center next to the Crunch Fitness and the five below.
- [07:49]
A
All right, great. Rhonda, thanks so much for being with us on South Florida Sunday and have a great rest of your weekend and we'll hope to see you at the
- [07:57]
B
events and I hope to see you all at the event on the first and second. It's lots of fun.