Children’s Hospital thrift shop to temporarily close for renovations
From left, South Bay Auxiliary co-president Dona Stevens, vice president Terri Burschinger and co-president Lois Bergon inside the auxiliary’s thrift shop on Redondo Beach. Photo
Several years ago, Redondo Beach resident Terri Burschinger was standing behind the counter at the South Bay Auxiliary Thrift Shop when a man offered her a nest of metal wires. It’s a lobster trap, the man offered helpfully.
Burschinger, a vice president of the Auxiliary, said the lobster trap eventually found a home, one of many unlikely treasures to pass through the thrift shop’s doors over the years. The shop is a charitable effort that supports Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Starting in February, it will be getting a facelift, with volunteers hoping to continue contributing to the hospital’s mission for decades to come.
“All charities have worthy causes. But just think about the babies, little children needing surgery. And Children’s Hospital never turns anyone away,” said co-president Lois Bergon, a Manhattan Beach resident.
The South Bay Auxiliary is one of roughly three dozen volunteer organizations scattered throughout Southern California that support the mission of Children’s Hospital but is one of only two to do so with a thrift shop. The shop operates out of an oddly shaped structure whose location at the triangular intersection of Aviation Boulevard, Ford Avenue and Harriman Lane gives it the feel of a compressed version of New York’s Flatiron Building. Its aisles are crowded, a small storage space in the rear is awash in coat hangers, and the store is too cramped for large items like furniture. It stocks mostly clothing, but also carries books, toys and linens.
Planned improvements include a new floor, repainting, and rearranging the store’s fixtures, Bergon said. One of the volunteers’ granddaughters, an interior designer, will help design a new layout to make it easier for customers and volunteers to move around. The work will be financed by a donation to the Auxiliary, held in trust to be used for physical improvements.
On a recent Friday, the thrift shop was humming with business, customers squeezing past one another to stock up on holiday bargains. A woman perused a display of blouses next to a case of antique ceramic beer steins. A man, arms already full, threw a pair of pants over his shoulder as he approached the counter. And a steady flow of cars circulated through the curbside parking.
“It’s definitely busier during the holidays,” said co-president Dona Stevens, surveying the crowded store. “We try to make it as easy as possible.”
More than 60 South Bay residents donate their time volunteering for the Auxiliary, including a staff of 45 who serve shifts inside the shop. The Auxiliary draws the sort of person who is committed to volunteering, and has searched for a cause that resonates. Burschinger was a long-time donor to the organization, then began volunteering and rose through the ranks. Stevens said she found the Auxiliary through her previous volunteer efforts with the Neptunian Woman’s Club in Manhattan Beach. She attended some events, then decided to take the plunge.
“I felt a little bit guilty that I was just attending the fun ones,” Stevens said.
The South Bay Auxiliary is a 105-year-old organization, founded about a decade after Children’s Hospital itself. It was started by a group of Hermosa Beach women, who for a time ran a branch of the hospital out of a home on Monterey Boulevard. The thrift shop opened in 1930.
Children’s Hospital, located a few miles west of downtown Los Angeles, serves more than 100,000 kids each year, and provides more than $300 million worth of care and benefits to children and families annually, according to its web site. Along with being an operating hospital, it also serves as a center for medical research.
Auxiliary members take annual tours of the hospital, where they get to see what the money they raise is going toward. This year, volunteers got to see an experimental exoskeleton, which could help those suffering from paralysis walk again.
The store will hold an extended sale in January, before construction begins, to clear out any items that survive the holiday rush. It will reopen in March, but will continue accepting donations between 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. during construction.