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Thriftiqe Store
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Native American Outreach
Thrift store merchandise is shipped to 10 drop-off points throughout the Navajo Nation. Native Outreach serves over 500 families. Due to the high volume of donations, WabiSabi is able to donate excess goods to distribution points on the Navajo Nation. Our liaisons with the Navajo Nation are Kresha Eastman, Coordinator of Castleland Resource Conservation & Development program and Sam Cunnigham chairperson of Castleland RC&D.
Designated by the Secretary of Agriculture in 1990, the Castleland Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) area encompasses four counties in southeastern Utah: Carbon, Emery, Grand, and San Juan. The vision of the Castleland RC&D Council is that of "a unique and creative partnership of community leaders and volunteers dedicated to enhancing southeastern Utah communities."The council’s mission is "to facilitate community excellence by building partnerships, creating dialogue, and developing processes to better utilize natural and human resources in southeastern Utah."
Every other Tuesday, Sam and Kresha arrive with a truck pulling a horse trailer and spend the next two-three hours loading up items to take to one of the distribution centers. The response from the Navajo community has been one of overwhelming gratitude. Those who have assisted in the distribution have been shocked by the quality of the items and our desire to give the donations away. In turn, we are impressed by their ability to take on the quantity of goods and find families whose needs far exceed our expectations. The well appears to be deeper than we anticipated or imagined. With so much overabundance of material goods and rapid consumption taking place in our country, it is a tragedy that poverty, especially material poverty, exists in any corner of our nation or the world.
WabiSabi, working in conjunction with Castleland RC&D, is part of the solution — donating goods, that may otherwise be deposited into the landfill, to people who are in need of such goods. We are also in the early stages of assisting in the establishment of an independent thrift store that will serve the Navajo Nation. The location is still TBD; however, we are confident that it is a viable business that will benefit the Native communities economically, socially and environmentally.Currently the donations are serving over 500 Navajo families through seven distribution sites including: Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle — Navajo Nation Division of Social Services, Chapter Houses: Sweetwater Chapter in AZ, Redmesa Chapter, AZ and UT, Mexican Water, AZ and UT, Rockpoint, AZ, Teecnostos, AZ, and Shiprock Chapter, NM; Monument Valley HighSchool, UT