When a refugee family is resettled through Catholic Charities, they come to our location to receive the things they need from our room of items donated by the community. Our current space is like a warehouse: all of our incoming and outgoing donations are in one space, and it makes for an overwhelming experience for clients already acclimating to a totally new country. Still, we want to give clients the dignity to pick out items like household goods and clothing for themselves. By redesigning the donation room, clients will have their own space to “shop.” Staff will spend significantly less time sorting through donations and more time directly helping clients.
We will be moving the shopping space to another building on our campus and want it to be a dignified “store-like” experience for our clients. Our student group will help us to move the items and the needed accessories to the new building. The old space will be used as a place to efficiently sort donations that will eventually be given to clients.