Treating them with kindness
The Red Cross charity shop is made with employees and volunteers who are a group from diverse backgrounds, willing to accept people without judgement and treat them with kindness.
The shop sells a lot of men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing, and other items such as books, jewellery, furnitures, manchesters and knick knacks like crystal lamps and tarot cards.
Carolyne Lockerbie, the Assistant Manager for two years at the Red Cross Shop is from Edinburgh, Scotland, but she has been in Aotearoa for 37 years. She has a penchant for books and whenever they are donated, she organises them immediately.
Carolyne was inspired to be part of the Red Cross community after she volunteered in the Matamata store and enjoyed her time while volunteering there. She also has an interesting story.
“My daughter-in-law is an ambassador for the Red Cross and most of her siblings were volunteers for the Red Cross”. Mostly, she had a lot more time in her hands then saw the opportunity when there was a job open and said, “I want to help and give back to others.”
She started working at the Hamilton CBD Red Cross shop a year ago, and before then she worked at the charity shop at Five Cross Roads. Most of her regular customers sometimes visit her and volunteers say Carolyne is a nice woman who is ‘like a mum’ to the volunteers and employees. She will motivate everyone to work hard at the shop.
Carolyne likes to talk to customers because the people coming in and out of the shop are all from walks of life. “Whenever I talk to customers, I kind of relate to their stories sometimes”, she says.
The most memorable customer she had was a homeless person who needed clothes and gave her more than the actual price of the items. Carolyne recalled the story. “I admired her honesty and I gave her a discount. All of the things she bought were only twenty dollars, but she gave me a bit more. I’m like, no, and we settled on the twenty dollars.”
At the charity shop, she is very organised as she arranges the clothes by size and colour, decorating the store and categorising the books by author. Volunteers say the way she interacts with customers is amazing because “she creates good rapport with the customers and sometimes gives them discounts in the shop.”
Carolyne is one of the members of the Red Cross shop community who is an example of giving back to people without any judgments and treating them with kindness.
The shop is open at 9:00 am to 5:00 pm during the weekdays while on Saturdays they are open 9:00 am to 4:00 pm and on Sunday they open at 10:00 am until 4:00 pm.
