The Sharing Shelf builds stable Teen Boutique
May 9, 2024 at 1:12 a.m.
Deborah Blatt said teenagers don’t just endure the typical tribulations associated with clothing insecurity.
“They are more likely to be bullied in school, of course. They’re more self-conscious about themselves and generally insecure,” Blatt, founder and executive director of The Sharing Shelf, said. “But they also miss out on things that most people don’t even realize is a privilege.”
The experience in question: Shopping for the clothes they want to wear.
The process of walking through a store, picking out something that catches the eye, trying it on and walking out with items that convey their personality and style is completely foreign to some teenagers, she urged.
To help some teens enjoy that feeling, The Sharing Shelf—a clothing bank in Port Chester that serves people in need across the county—has opened a permanent store-like environment adjacent to their warehouse at 47 Purdy Ave.: Teen Boutique.
While the project has been in the works for 11 months, Blatt and her team have been experimenting with the program for far longer.
From pop-up events to brick and mortar
The initial version of Teen Boutique was formulated 12 years ago, in 2012, when Caroline Stoerger, a Girl Scout from New Rochelle, collaborated with Blatt to host Girl-Topia at the Port Chester-Rye Brook Girl Scout House in Lyon Park.
Blatt said the success of the event spurred her to make it a semi-annual opportunity for low-income teenaged girls to pick out clothes, shoes and accessories for their wardrobe—pieces they may not have previously had access to. They had free reign to pick anything from the selection of donated items brought from the organization’s warehouse.
“Originally, we would rent out spaces across Westchester. We would hold it in Port Chester, New Rochelle and White Plains,” explained Alex Gatti, president of the non-profit’s board. “Dozens of volunteers would help us create a shopping environment.”
The event would run twice a year, once in April and once in November, to provide girls with weather appropriate clothing.
Blatt said while each Girl-Topia session was a success, helping up to 250 teenagers at every stop, each year shined a light on where they could improve.
“We learned from the teens,” she said. “We learned from the choices they were making, what styles they wanted and what they didn’t.”
Within the first several years, the group recognized a rebranding was in order.
“We started out as Girl-Topia, and what’s baked into that?” Blatt posed. “Girls. But girls don’t always want to be stereotypically identified in pinks and dresses. They may identify as nonbinary and we needed to have gender-free styles to meet those needs.”
Renamed Teen Boutique, the selection of clothes expanded to all genders, and other necessities like underwear and hygiene supplies were added as the years went on.
The program, like many others, was put on hold when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
“When the pandemic happened, we couldn’t have an environment where we had 200 people,” Gatti said. “So we transitioned to smaller pop-up events in 2020.”
With prom just around the corner, the Teen Boutique offers high schoolers the chance to snag a dress for the occasion. The offerings of the store will rotate based on the season.By David Tapia
In the following three years, Teen Boutiques would be hosted at schools, community centers and churches across the county. While the smaller format saw success, it would occasionally run into issues.
“Not every location could host us,” Blatt said. “And even when a venue would agree (to host the event), that site could suddenly fall through.”
With that in mind, a permanent solution began to take root in Blatt’s mind, which came to fruition in 2023.
In January of that year, The Sharing Shelf expanded their space to create a permanent home for Teen Boutique. But in order to complete the look of an actual storefront, they needed more funding.
A few months later, on June 10, The Sharing Shelf received an $80,000 grant from Impact100 Westchester, a women’s collective giving organization that funds nonprofits.
After 11 months of design and construction, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held for the new, permanent boutique on Wednesday, May 8, formally marking its completion and opening its doors to those who qualify.
The Teen Boutique experience
To visit the store, certain qualifications must be met.
“First, the kid gets here though a social worker, a community partner or some other agency,” said Niki Grados, an Irvington resident who runs the boutique as its program director. The group that referred the teen makes an appointment for them to visit. She added several youths have already been brought to them by the Carver Center and Port Chester High School.
“Each teen is then given a shopping list, with a maximum number of items allowed for categories,” Grados continued.
The numbers on that list are determined by the current stock of donated items. On opening day, the allowable items included seven shirts, two sweaters, two dresses and more.
The dresses available were a notable point for Blatt.
“It’s prom season right now, and not everyone can go dress shopping,” she said. “So we try to offer them that experience.”
All shoppers are given free reign over their selections and parents are not allowed to assist. Grados explained it was a policy set to allow teens the opportunity to truly explore their options and express themselves without outside pressure.
Though the ribbon cutting ceremony, attended by government officials and community leaders, was held this week, Grados said the Teen Boutique had been operating for several months.
“The space has been up and running for a little while,” she said. “But it didn’t look like this. A transformation has been going on and this opening is the presentation of the official appearance.”
It’s a look that saw several iterations prior to the ceremony.
“We moved things around a lot, and made some mistakes,” Blatt said. “At one point, we had the jeans on the same wall as the shirts and kids would just concentrate in that area. Now, we’re really making effective use of the space and they’re exploring all of it.”
As the layout of the space mimics that of a store, with distinct aisles and shelves dedicated for specific types of clothes, Blatt has noticed visitors treat their time in the Teen Boutique differently than other clothing banks.
“There’s kind of a transformation in personality that happens,” she said. “They walk in kind of shy and guarded, but when they’re leaving, they’re excited and almost flaunting what they found.”
Grados expects the Teen Boutique to see a lot of use, even with the two visits per year limitation that has been implemented. In 2023, The Sharing Shelf received 5,500 requests for children’s and teenage clothing from various agencies.
“The goal is really that we get to the point where we no longer have jobs,” she laughed. “But until we get to that point, we’re going to serve everyone we can.”
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