Alice Patey and Gabriela Antia have first pick of everything that comes into Pearl's 2nds.
"There's something fun about picking through someone else's trash," said Patey, who is 20 and from Portugal Cove, Nfld. "One man's trash is another man's treasure [or] woman's treasure."
Pearl's 2nds, which is a thrift store run by volunteers of the Howe Sound Women's Centre, has a new storefront that is about three times bigger than the nook where it was before.
The new space not only gives shoppers some elbow room while they're browsing, it also means that volunteers don't have to turn away any furniture and other large items, and that the store (and the Women's Centre, where the profit heads) will benefit from all the pedestrians on Cleveland Avenue. And Patey and Antia were among the small crew of volunteers that built it.
"It's bigger," said Patey. "It's more exciting, more customers, more action, more, more, more, more, more.""Basically it's this: we know a lot of people. Each one is a good person," said Antia, who is 19 and from Montevideo, Uruguay.
"[I meet] the kind of women that I'd otherwise never get the opportunity to interact with," said Patey. "The other volunteers they care about us. It's like having aunties."
Patey and Antia are taking part in an exchange between Canada and Uruguay with a program called Canada World Youth. It is the same program which in 2000 posted youth volunteers from Canada and Estonia at the Women's Centre, which in turn led to the original opening of Pearl's 2nds on Second Avenue.
"Canada World Youth has been here the two times. It's very needed," said Melany Crowston, the Centre's program coordinator, and Patey and Antia's supervisor.
About a month ago, Patey and Antia set about getting ready for the big move into the new storefront on Cleveland. They repaired drywall, plastered and painted all the walls, and gave the floors a thorough, hands and knees scrub down. When the space was ready, Patey and Antia unpacked and sorted the merchandise as it came, and the new Pearl's 2nds opened its doors on Aug. 8.
Stephanie Scardellato and Gaston Musetti, two more exchange participants, recently finished their work as counselors at Totem Hall's summer camp with a trip to Playland.
"It's the best job ever," said Scardellato, who is 18 and from Toronto. She has worked in summer camps before, back home. "Kids are kids," she said. "They're all fun, I don't think there's any difference beyond their cultural background." "You do what they want to do," said Musetti. "The other day, we went to Playland without the kids and we were lost like what do we do?"
Musetti, 18, is from Montevideo, Uruguay. In his two month's work he has learned most of the standard Canadian childhood bus-ride songs, including "who stole the cookies from the cookie jar." According to Musetti, most days began with a bus ride.
Scardellato said that she prefers working with the youngest kids (4-7 year olds) but, of the 12-16 year-old group she says "they've got strong ideas they're very aware of what's around them."
She added that for her, the best times weren't always had in ball-pits, on roller-coasters or diving boards.
"The bus ride back from Vancouver, when the kids are sleeping all over us because they had so much fun that day those are the greatest moments."
Scardellato, Musetti and the other 18 exchange participants are now preparing to move out of Squamish, to Vancouver. After a few-days of acclimatization in Vancouver, they board a plane. Two stopovers and about 24 hours later, they land in Montevideo, Uruguay, just in time for Uruguay's Heritage Day.
After another few days of culture shock acclimatization, the group begins its three-month stint in Durazno, Uruguay, complete with work placements and host families, just like in Squamish.
