Zora Whitfield, Special to The Denisonian—
As a co-founder of Revival Thrift Denison, I believe that it is my duty to address the inaccurate beliefs members that the Denison Community may hold about my small non-profit. In the past year, Revival Thrift Denison has received anonymous DMs, overheard comments, and seen anonymous YIKYAKs questioning the integrity of Revival Thrift’s monetary practices. Witnessing the integrity of the Revival Thrift Denison questioned is heartbreaking and I would be remiss if I did not attempt to put an end to the misinformation. The misinformation and inaccurate beliefs about the integrity of Revival Thrift’s monetary practices are not only defamatory to Revival Thrift, but defamatory to my reputation and the Revival Thrift Denison staff( who are some of the most loving, inspiring revolutionary, and service-oriented people I’ve ever met).
Before I defend my business’ integrity, I would like to offer a critique of the social culture at Denison. I believe that the social culture is amazing in that students like to advocate for change, however, most times students complain about the issues they see in the Denison community instead of taking action to make a change. I want to tell students that simply complaining and gossiping is not revolutionary and it can be maladaptive and harmful to the Denison Community if the complaining and gossiping are not rooted in facts.
If you want to make revolutionary change, come out from behind YIK YAK, collect facts, and advocate for change in the Denison Community! No change has ever been made without action, and complaining, spreading rumors, and being complicit in the face of misinformation is not action. In terms of the situation at hand, I encouraged Denison Students to ask Revival Thrift the questions directly instead of hiding behind YIKYAK, or Instagram accounts. We are not the enemy, we are here to serve you, and we are open to hearing your concerns and providing you with accurate information about Revival Thrift.
First, before debunking the misinformation about Denison Thrift, I believe it is my duty to explain what Revivial Thirft Denison truly is. If students had a sense of what Revival Thrift truly was, there would be no concern over the integrity of Revivial’s monetary practices.
Revival Thrift Denison was designed to be NON-PROFIT. Nonprofits are defined as “a group organized for purposes other than generating a profit and in which no part of the organization’s income is distributed to its members, directors, or officers”. This being said, no Revival Staff members are rolling in cash. This is because the staff members making cash would not be incongruent with the definition of nonprofit.
Since Revival Thrift Denison is a non-profit, the main goal of Revival thrift is to provide an affordable thrifting experience to the Denison Community with diverse clothing sizes while remaining devoted to environmentally friendly practices. Our staff members work for free to sort clothes, set up pop-ups, select clothing, organize sustainability workshops and collaborations, and transport excess clothing off campus. Our service is set apart from the Doobie Markets and consignment shops because we can ensure that we have diverse clothing types, low prices, diverse clothing sizes, and more. Furthermore, our business model and inventory is adaptable to the needs of Denison University Students.
Although the main goal of Revivial Thrift Denison is not to make money, we do need to earn money to function. We spend upwards of $400 dollars to have a popup, and we make around $50-100 dollar profit from each pop-up. Currently, within our bank account, we have accumulated at least $1,300. It took three years to accumulate this money because running a non-profit is hard.
We have been looking this semester into meaningful ways we can invest this money back into the Denison communities, the customer experience, and philanthropy. So far we have funded workshops for upcycling, given out free professional clothing on campus (we are working to establish a professional clothing closet with Knowlton for interviews), are tackling the issue of the gentrification of thrifting by exploring partnerships with outside grassroots and service organizations so that we give our excess clothing away to free directly to people in need, support Denison artists, and we plan on donating about 25% of the money in our account to philanthropy on campus.
This is the truth about Revivial Thrift Denison’s monetary usage. All of our profit is absorbed back into the company so that we can give back to the Denison community. For all the selfless unpaid hard work my fellow Revival Thrift employees do for the benefit of the community, it is deeply disappointing to witness that the integrity of their work is being questioned in an unproductive way. This being said, I believe that we could be more transparent about what Revival Thrift Denison is doing for the community. This is something we will work on as staff members going forward. All in all, if you have concerns about Revival, say it with your chest and address it in a mature way instead of spreading myths and information, investigate the truth. Spreading misinformation is harmful to the Denison Community. If you’re truly serious about making actionable change and giving constructive criticism to Revival Thrift Denison, please feel free to reach out to me or other Revival Staff members.
If not, feel free to continue complaining anonymously.