By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.com
On this particular day, there’s a selection of laundry products and hair dyes, Milk Bones and some baby items on the shelves in the atrium. Next week, the items might be different.
Of course there’s always the bins of gently used – and sometimes new – collars and leashes and toys, stacks of beds and hand-made nap mats, shelves of food and water dishes and possibly a carrier or crate – or two.
But there’s also cases showing off seasonally-themed figurines and collectibles, tables with china and glassware, wall displays of jewelry, racks of totes and handbags, a curated collection of wall décor, and more.
Diamonds in the Ruff Thrift Shoppe – the eclectic store located just past the adoption center at Dakin Humane Society – is always surprising. First, because you wouldn’t expect to find something like this nestled among the waiting rooms and clinic wards of an animal shelter. Second, because there’s so very much to choose from.
This unique store – which donates all of its profits back to Dakin – is also the work of a pair of dedicated volunteers. For nearly 10 years the mother-daughter team of Pearl and Karen Patino have culled and curated, cleaned and priced the thousands of items that have been donated to Diamonds in the Ruff.
Prime spent a Saturday morning with the Patinos talking about the Shoppe, it’s importance to Dakin’s mission, and how the whole thing got started.
From a table at the MSPCA
Karen said she began volunteering at the MSPCA – the former tenant of the animal shelter at 1717 Union Street – back in 2006. Back then, the state office she works for was located on the corner of State and Main streets.
“I needed something to do, and I love animals,” Karen told Prime. “I came over now and then to pitch in [and] I did what they needed me to do – laundry, walk a dog, clean a litter box, bathe a ferret.”
At that time the MSPCA was hosting a fundraising table in the building’s lobby offering extra boxes of dog biscuits and a few toys – “not very much,” Karen said – called “Barkin’ Bargains.” Karen started to “take care” of the modest fundraiser, and it soon grew to fill two tables. In 2008, the MSPCA manager at the time, Pam Peebles, suggested converting a vacant office into a shop to house the gradually expanding collection of items for sale.
Karen said she, Peebles and a fellow MSPCA volunteer – Anne Hurburt, who now also works for Dakin – set up the first real thrift shop.
“It was the one room and we had everything in there – household stuff and pet supplies,” Karen said. “At that time I took care of everything myself. We didn’t have a lot of donations, just enough to get us going.
“I used to be able to come in on a Friday afternoon and take care of any new donations and feed all the cats,” Karen added. It wasn’t long, however, before the collection of thrift shop offerings grew to fill what had been a small storage area off the main room.
“It became a selling area, too,” Karen said.
Then, just 13 months after the thrift shop opened, the MSPCA closed their Springfield adoption center.
“Then Dakin bought the building,” Karen said. “They knew about the thrift shop we had, and I offered to do it [again].”
Karen said her mother Pearl – who, with Karen’s dad used to operate antique booths at Brimfield and other shows – expressed an interest in helping her this time around. The adoption center’s thrift shop reopened under the auspices of Dakin Humane Society in November of 2009.
However, the initial reboot was a bit rocky. Karen said at first there wasn’t really enough salable merchandise to justify the amount of space in the office-turned shop.
“We were putting out things that weren’t very wonderful because we were thinking, ‘we have to fill these shelves’,” Pearl said. But it didn’t take long for the merchandise selection to grow. Ten years later, Diamonds in the Ruff Thrift Shoppe is a thriving enterprise that consistently contributes more than $1,000 in sales per month to support Dakin’s many programs.
More than just a thrift shop
“What you have now is the original shop and the atrium – which sometimes we can’t fit another collar out there,” Karen said. The volume of items the Shoppe now regularly sells and collects in donations is more than Karen – who spends every Saturday sorting and pricing items – can now handle by herself. Karen said Dakin employees and volunteers accept and semi-sort donations during the week, and also monitor sales on the days when she and Pearl aren’t at the shelter. But the actual nitty-gritty of deciding what to throw out, what to store and what goes out on the floor each week is all done by Karen and her mother.
“She has always taken care of the pet supplies, and I have taken care of the household items, which I still do,” Pearl explained. Under Pearl’s careful curating, the former office space now has the look and feel of a cozy antique shop, with figurines, china, glassware and even jewelry carefully coordinated by themes and styles. Out in the atrium, Karen has designated spaces for cat-related items, dog-related items, donations of other household essentials such as detergents and baby items, fish and reptile supplies, and other “finds” that Karen collects, such as small tables, and unexpected donations– such as a brand-new, in-the-box pack-and-play-type crib that was on display the day Prime visited.
“It’s all donations; what we sell costs us nothing,” Karen said, adding that an area convenience story regularly donates an assortment of health and beauty items – and pet supply stores often donate items and food – for the Shoppe to sell, something you don’t usually find among thrift shop offerings.
“What it costs Dakin is the space in the building … it’s basically all profit [for the shelter],” she added.
Karen said last year Diamonds in the Ruff Thrift Shoppe set a sales record, bringing in $58,660. The money, she added, was used to support animal care, to help fund Dakin’s education programs, and anywhere else it was needed in the facility.
“That’s a lot of money for a place like this,” Pearl noted. Especially, Karen added, because the majority of sales are done on the honor system.
“People will come in and when they find something they want, we have bags [and wrapping materials in the shop] and they bring their items up to the greeter at the front door and things work out quite nicely,” Karen said.
Everyone’s labor of love
Karen praised Dakin’s volunteer greeters for providing the much-needed help in keeping Diamonds in the Ruff running smoothly – and profitably – during the times when she and Pearl can’t be there.
“There are several greeters, and I don’t want to name them because I don’t want to leave anyone out, who do quite a lot of pricing that I’m not able to [do],” Karen said “Because of the greeters help, we do not have donations flowing out the door and down the street, and it has definitely helped the sales because more things are being put out.”
Pearl – who tuned 85 just days before Prime’s visit – said unlike the early days when she could come in once a week and keep things going, she too, now works three days a week to keep the Shoppe and atrium areas organized and the shelves stocked.
Karen, who at 59 still works full-time and can only devote the one day a week – “and sometimes an hour or so on Friday afternoons” – to sort and clean the ever-growing collection of weekly donations, showed Prime how the shop now has to store its overflow items – some of it seasonal such as Halloween and Christmas pet costumes and toys – in several back rooms of the shelter, including the former animal hospital’s morgue space.
Come shop the Shoppe
Despite the remarkable level of sales, both women said Diamonds in the Ruff Thrift Shoppe is still one of Dakin’s best-kept secrets. On a weekly basis they hear from visitors who have just discovered the Shoppe, and are surprised by what it offers.
“We’re just going to keep doing what we always do, and do all we can to let people know we are here,” Karen shared with Prime.
And though the majority of sales still revolve around the pet items the Shoppe has to offer, the women said there’s still no way to predict what might catch a shopper’s eye.
“Just this morning I had a woman who bought a fish tank,” Pearl said. “And then she spotted a Schnauzer [figurine] on the floor. She bought that, too.”
Karen said Diamonds in the Ruff Thrift Shoppe – located just past the adoption area at Dakin Humane Society – is open Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 5:30 p.m. Thrift Shoppe donations are welcome anytime the adoption center is open. Karen said individuals should see the adoption center greeter for information on where to bring their items.
