Editor’s note: The following is part of a class project originally started in Ball State University professor Adam Kuban’s fall 2021 class. Kuban continued the project this fall, challenging his students to find sustainability efforts in the Muncie area and present their ideas . To Deanna Watson, editor of The Star Press, Journal & Courier and Pal-Item. Several such stories were featured in November and December 2022.
MUNCIE, Ind. – After COVID-19 forced the Attic Window Thrift Store and Donation Center to close all five of its locations for three months in early 2020, Louanna Ross, Attic Window’s director of retail operations, didn’t know how profitable the business was. will be upon reopening.
The shop produced record years for the rest of 2020 and 2021, and in October 2022, it donated 2,100 cars at its south Muncie location at 400 W. Memorial Drive.
Ross has been involved in the thrift store for over nine years, overseeing its stores in Muncie, Hartford City, New Castle and Winchester. Attic Window operates under Muncie Mission Ministries and sells clothing, shoes, furniture and other items.
Ross, who has 40 years of experience in retail management, said she has seen an increased concern for sustainability from her customers, employees and vendors in recent years.
“We don’t just do retail; We’re huge on recycling,” Ross said. “If the t-shirt is 50% or more cotton, we recycle it and cut out the logos. Factories will come in and buy them anywhere from $8 to $11. We still use the product [even] unless it’s worth selling.”
Emily Gartner, owner of Art Threads Studios in Indianapolis, has been a full-time textile artist for the past 22 years.
Gartner worked in the New York fashion industry and served as Assistant Curator of Textiles for the Allentown Art Museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Gartner said thrift stores are important because they allow items that might have ended up in a landfill to be sold to customers who need them.
“I’m not going to let my little studio become a dumping ground for people’s cast-off sewing machines, fabrics and clothes,” Gartner said. “If I don’t have an immediate use for it, I’d rather they donate to a thrift store that can use it.”
Ross said Attic Window follows an organized recycling routine. Ross said employees in the warehouse identify T-shirts with buttons that aren’t worth selling and cut the buttons off and recycle them. Ross said they also recycle aluminum, cardboard, cast iron, copper, metal and paper. This offers Attic Window a chance to upcycle, which involves taking parts of unwanted products and turning them into new material.
Over the past few years, Gartner and Ross said they’ve noticed that younger shoppers show more care and urgency about what’s in their shopping cart.
According to a 2020 study by researchers at Molloy University (New York), “The Sustainable Closet,” more than 70% of college students in the northeastern United States knew about fashion resale platforms.
The study highlighted social media as the biggest contributor to the joy of upselling, as Gen Z are keen to post their outfits and see what their friends are wearing.