November 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Amy Anderson of Amy's Armoire — Barre’s nonprofit thrift store dedicated to supporting our foster community — is rallying Central Vermont to help make Christmas happen for 52 families this year. She needs our help, and the deadline is coming fast: December 12th. Nearly 100 local children are still on the waiting list and haven’t been chosen yet. If you can pitch in, please visit AmysArmoire.org and help with this Main Street gift project.
It’s quick. It’s simple. It’s needed. Let’s show what this community can do.
It’s quick. It’s simple. It’s needed. Let’s show what this community can do.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
An All right, it's officially now a minute into the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I told you before, I'm gonna tell you again this.
I'm gonna be playing some catch up on some things.
Well it really started yesterday, but it's gonna be happening
today and probably tomorrow as well. There's a lot of
stuff that I'm going to try to squeeze in here
before taking Thursday and Friday to be with family, which
(02:10):
I'm so much looking forward to. But this lady who's
on the couch right now across for me, everybody knows
Amy's armoire. Everybody knows Amy Anderson. I'm so glad you're here.
Thank you for popping in here and hopping on the
air with me at high noon here on this Tuesday.
(02:31):
It is Tuesday, right, Yes, it's Tuesday. You and I
are very similar where we're all We're always going one
hundred miles an hour in one direction or another and
just juggling multiple things at the same time. You are
one of the seriously one of the busiest ladies that
I know.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I'm not as busy as I am busy, but I'm
not as busy with the nonprofit as I was, simply
because for last year I've been taking care of my
mom a lot, and I have amazing people who have
just taken turns picking up the weight, and we've all
been doing it for each other as different things have
been happening. We just have such a great group of volunteers.
(03:11):
It's just absolutely amazing. We couldn't be doing what we're
doing without all of them.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oh no, no, no, absolutely not. For folks not familiar
with Amy's arm War, please do tell what is Amy's
arm War.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So, Amy's Armore is a couple of things. It's a
thrift store, but that's not who we are.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
We are actually a non profit and the thrift store
is just the ongoing fundraiser essentially for our nonprofit. The
nonprofit has a mission to help support foster, adopt kin
and birth families and youth who have come from those
situations in ways that help stabilize them.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, and that's boys that is so abbreviated right there, because.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Do so much more than that, but just helping out kin,
next of kin and foster kids. Yeah, just even in
an emergency situation where it's Sunday night at ten o'clock
and there's a foster family that's in need. Yep, you've
(04:30):
got it all right there. You don't have all of it,
but you've got most of it. I think love is
like the main thing that is.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, I feel like I have a connection to the
community and that's what makes us work. And I feel
like it doesn't matter if I have a first generation
college student who aged out of foster care who writes
me at midnight and says I want a Halloween costume
and I don't have enough money for one. Is that
(04:58):
something you guys will do? And I think to myself,
you know, it's not really an essential thing, but you
know what, I'm going to put it out to the
community and see what they think. Because I remember going
to college and I remember how important it was to
fit in and uh have the same stuff as everybody else,
and to have a kid not have a family to
(05:19):
reach out for that thing. This community becomes that family definitely,
and we solved it and and within an hour that
kid had his money for his hollowing costume.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I love. I love stuff like that. Yeah, you you
honestly could could write a book with the stories that
you've got that are probably near and dear to so
many hearts and so many people that you have played
a role in their lives on the sidelines without the community.
Spotlight shine and bright bright down on you. And that's
(05:52):
really yeah, that says something huge about you. You. Uh,
you had this vision, this, this dream, for lack of
a better term, to do something like this not an
easy task.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
No, I mean.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So I was still working for corrections in the middle
of COVID. It was a really hard time for everybody,
and I had actually the day I decided to get done.
I still had two and a half years left to go,
but we had lost to women to overdose that day.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I said, you know enough.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And I wanted to do something different to have a
greater impact on the community. I was working in restorative justice,
and I felt that was really impactful work. But even
when I was a correction officer, most of the people
that we incarcrate, even nationally, it's known that they have
(06:54):
spent some time in foster care. Anecdotally, I saw that firsthand.
I talk to these people and they come from hard
places and hurt people, hurt people, and if there was
a way for me to stop that cycle, then I
wanted to.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Figure out how to do that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
So I retired May twenty first of twenty twenty one.
In June first of twenty one, I opened my thrift store.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, so many of us here in Central Vermont remember
when you opened and you started doing this. And it's a.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Tiny little building, tiny little spot over behind soups and
greens that had no windows, one door in, one door out.
It was most people like were so uncomfortable. Of course,
I worked in jail, so it was fretty pretty comfortable
for me to have one way out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And look at what's happened. Look at what you've done
in our community. Look at what you've done with Night
to Shine, look at what you've done in so many
different ways. But look at what you've done in that space.
Now you've expanded it out, You've got the annex.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Now, yeah, I got to disagree with you, JD.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I haven't done anything except for light a candle, you know,
and and then you know, maybe created a big boat
that everybody hopped in and started paddling with me. But
I haven't done anything other than that is just give
the direction and hopefully a little bit of encouragent, encouragement
and inspiration potentially, because I feel like the world is
(08:29):
full of giving people right like, we all know suffrage,
we all know hurt and pain, and if there's a
way to alleviate that for other people, everybody wants to
do that, but it's like, how do we how do
we even find the ways to do it that are
most impactful? And I just figured if we can help
(08:52):
stabilize these children.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
And what I mean by that is a.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Statistically, we're not doing good on how often we move
children in the foster care system, and so my goal
is to reduce that movement, and if the children are
with a birth family or going to a birth family,
we'll also try to stabilize them there so that they
don't come back into care or don't come into care
(09:21):
to begin with. How great would that be? You know,
things have changed over the years. We used to be really,
really supportive of communities. There was no government that came
in and swooped in and helped, and we've kind of
gotten away from that. And you know, the government does
what they can with the money they're given and with
(09:42):
the system that's existing, but everybody knows it's flawed and
there are gaps. Everybody knows that, and so I'm just
trying to do what I can to partner with those agencies,
to partner with other agencies that do similar things without
(10:03):
recreating the wheel, helping people find the resources that are
already out there and making sure that we can fill
every need that comes our way.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Potentially, you're a pioneer, you really are. I think you're
a legend.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
With I do that's my grandson's name.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
With what you've done here in this community. I mean,
this is stuff that's that's sustained and it's really having
an incredible impact.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
It really is, I mean, I hope.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So you've got your donation center that's set up on
Saturday mornings down at the old Tatrose Appliance building just
down the road. Yes, from nine.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
No, ten to two, ten to two, okay, ye bring
something that you have as long as it's in new
condition or good connection so.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
It doesn't have to be no. Like, we're also helping
the environment. So like if you have stuff that is stained, ripped,
tears holes, put it in a bag and say rags
and bring it to us. Salvation Army comes and gets it.
They bail it from material. They get seventy cents a
pound for that I think or something like that, and
it helps them. It helps the environment. They chop it up,
(11:17):
put in mattresses, shoes, whatever.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Real.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, so like it just I don't want people throwing
stuff away.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Just I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah, just bring it to us and put it in
a separate bag and it goes right by the door
and out to Salvation Army and the other stuff will
will sell it and stuff that's in between. Sometimes we'll
give it to Berlin Police Department. We have a bin
for that, so we bring that to the homeless and
stuff if there's really warm weather stuff or even even
(11:46):
it's like warm wether stuff. I mean cold weather stuff,
but even warm weather stuff. Because I've had a lady
come in who was homeless and only she the only
thing she had with sweatpants and she had to rip
them off to have shorts. So you know, we have
a pay it forward system in the store too, but
we want to make sure people are warm in the
winter and not too hot in the summer.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, all the seasons. Yeah, you've got with the holidays
right in front of us. You have a vision of
trying to help a lot of kids. One hundred and
twenty eight kids to be exact, fifty two families correct
what's happening. You've got a big campaign that's happening right now.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
So, we we had a post up for a couple
of weeks and asked the families that we support if they,
you know, needed help this year and last year, I
think it was sixty seven kids that we.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Were able to help and that needed help.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And so we had a lot of families sign up
this year, more than last year, and different families than
we typically get. And our organization isn't one of those
organizations that can only help somebody one year. We once
(13:06):
a family is connected to us, we're trying to continue
to help them. If a child goes home and they're
out of DCF custody, we'll support them for a year.
And we've supported families longer than that. We actually haven't
stopped supporting those families, and I hope to continue being
(13:26):
able to support all those families because ultimately, we don't
want kids to come back into foster care.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah. So, how you're calling this Amy's Gift project? How
can folks, I mean, this is the big important thing here.
How can folks get involved with trying to get back
to one hundred and twenty eight kids in Central vermat
(13:53):
here fifty two families. How can people get involved?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, so we on our website. It's the top thing
on our web site. So if you go to Amy's
Armor dot org, it's right there. There's a sign up
link there that has a sign up Genius. People can
Basically they're making a commitment in the sign up Genius
to purchase gifts for the child that they sign up for.
(14:17):
Each child was allowed to have five gifts to sign
up for with a total of one hundred dollars worth.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
You could just.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Buy one gift for a child, or you could buy
the whole child's items. If people buy one gift, you
know they're they're supposed to try to look at the
other gifts to try to kind of figure out how
much they should budget for that one particular gift. Sure,
depending on what the gifts are that the child put
(14:46):
on the list, with a grand total for each child
being one hundred dollars, just so that we can be equitable.
Sometimes you'll have a kid who's in a family of five,
and we'll get a donor that you know, really wants
to go overboard, and they spend three hundred on that
one kid, and then the other kids get eighty dollars
worth of things, and it's noticeable, and so we do
(15:07):
a last minute shuffle a lot of times to make
sure there's equity and families in particular. So that's the
reason we had to set a price tag on it,
just for equity.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
All right. I'm going to put this in the this
link in the comments here, but I'm on it right now.
Gifts are expected to be delivered unwrapped, yes, by the
twelfth of December.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And we do the unwrapped on purpose because you know,
there's sometimes people make a mistake and they get the
wrong age group of something or.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
The parent wants to be able to see what it
is their child is going to get before they wrap
it up themselves. Ye. We do have wrapping paper. We
also donate to families. We don't have as much left
this year, so if you have wrapping paper to donate,
you're more than welcome to do that too.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's great to know. Anytime during your business hours bring
that in.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
You can bring wrapping paper to the story.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yes, all right, so you put the item. Each item
has the child's number written on that on that item, yes,
So it's very easy to keep track here.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yes, I would recommend that you like print out the
instructions for reference later, because you'll get a when you
sign up for a child, you'll get an email back
and it will have the child number, It will have
the gifts that you've signed up for. It will have
those things, but it won't have things like the deadlines
sure and where to drop stuff off or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So if you're if you're doing this using your mobile phone,
just make sure you click full site. Go to the
the three lines at the top and click full site,
which is the easier.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Way to do absolutely, because I don't know, it's really clunky.
If you don't do that, it makes it so that
you only can see a couple of kids items at
a time, okay, and you can't scroll down to the
ones still waiting to be signed up for.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
All right, So Tuesday through Saturday from ten to three
is when you should bring your items. That's your business hours.
One fourteen North Main Street right here in Perry. Yes,
easy to park up back. There's designated parking right there.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Six spots behind our store also that are free.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And if you're in a rush, don't worry, just come in.
Somebody's going to help you. Out and we'll get your
stuff organized and ready to go into the hands of
that particular child on Christmas morning. Yeah, that's the goal here.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, that's the goal we have about Last I checked,
I didn't. I wasn't able to check this morning before
we went on air. But last I checked, we had
nearly one hundred kids still waiting to have a little
alf out there in the community to choose them to
purchase their gifts.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
How many kids waiting, I think it's.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Nearly one hundred.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Last I checked, it was between ninety and one hundred.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And there's a couple other things.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
If people have questions about the gift project, they can
email my team and that is not me directly. It
is Amy's Projects at Amy's armor dot org.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And we'll put that in the link. It's a M
Y S.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Projects at Amy's armoir a R M I.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
R dot org.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Okay, got it right here.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And then we also if people hate shopping, I'm one
of those, so I can relate. There are some people
that have been really helpful parents who actually gave us
a link right to Amazon so you could you could
just order from the link that they put there, and
you could write this email address and ask what the
(19:01):
shipping address is and then it could come right to
my house essentially.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Wow yep.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And then if people don't even want to do that
online ordering, it can be complicated. One of the things
you have to remember when you do the online order
is to check the gift gift I forgot what it is,
gifts something, and that allows you to put the name
of the person and in this case it would be
the child identifier, so like child one B or whatever
(19:30):
it is with the gender and age and yeah. And
so if you don't want to do any of that
and you just want to send money and then I
can have some volunteers just order the things for you.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
You can do that too.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
We have a venmo which is at Amy's Armore nonprofit. Okay,
and we'll put that out there too. It's on my
website as well.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
It is all right, No, the PayPal is on my website. Actually,
the venmos on.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
My Facebook me with that Venmo more time.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
It's at Amy's Armoire nonprofit all one word.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Amy's a M Y S.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Armoir is a R M O I R E nonprofit
all one word.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Okay, I've got that right here. That's for Venmo.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, so we're hoping to get all those all those kids.
Christmas is to be a little bit better this year.
I know that it's it's tough out there. It's tough
for families financially, it's tough for people have stuff going on.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
It's yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And taking a little bit of weight off of a
family at this time is uh is important.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I think so about one hundred kids on the wait
list right now here in Central Vermont.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Yeah, let's see, it's actually more than Central Vermont. JD.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I'm glad you mentioned that we had. Because we're a
state wide organization, a lot of people don't realize that
we are supporting families from Chittnham County, Franklin County, Hartford District,
Washington County, and Lamoyle County.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Okay, wow, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, we're connected to the foster adoption group all across
the state.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Well. Lund Family, it's incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Lund Family is incredible and they do they do a
great amount for their adoptive families that sign up. Most
of the families that signed up with us this year
were kinship families actually aunts, uncles, grandparents raising their relatives.
Might have been a soccer coach that knew the child before,
(21:39):
and that's considered fictive kin. But those people that were
connected to a child before something happened that their parents
were not able to take care of them at the moment,
and these families have stepped in and there's far more
of those in the state than there are foster children.
There's about seven thousand kids and kinsjep Care.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
You can this is your opportunity right here. This is
your chance to make a difference. And it doesn't have
to be you don't have to be uh you know,
some some big superhero here. Just every little bit counts.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
It really helps.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Stop into Amy's Armoir, do some Christmas shopping there. The
rewards that this reaps is huge in our community. Your
dollar is gonna is going to go very far when
it's spent locally like this. This your whole team, Robin Ian,
everyone there, Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Those are my three leads.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And then I got Bonnie as a lead over at
the Bonnie and Rebecca as the leads over at the
donation Center.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Great people, amazing, wonderful people have been in there so
many times and I love it. What you don't want
to do is be in a rush when you stop
into Amy's are More.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
It's a big store.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, it's a big store. You need to allow yourself
some time to browse around. There's something for everybody. What
you're doing in our community with this program is so important,
it's so wonderful. Well, we'll take this episode, We'll share it,
We'll spread it as much as we can. I'll get
you back on the air here anytime that you want
(23:23):
if we need you.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yeah, pretty soon. We got to do our yeah Christmas
PJ event.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, is that happening.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
I'm hoping.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
So are you willing if people bought, have people, if
people sign up to sponsor to get you out there
in your Christmas onesie?
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Are you willing to do it again?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I love doing that last I did it last year
with your husband.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It was a great fundraiser. It's really fun.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
It's you get out on main Street. If you got
anybody out there that you want to get out on
main Street and a Christmas onesie, Yeah, Like all you
got to do is say okay, I'm going to donate
to Amy's Armor, and you get the Onesie forum and
out there they.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Oh yeah, do it as a group.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Last year we had four or five of us out there.
It was super fun.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I loved it. It wins the date on that.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
We usually do it the week before Christmas, weather kind
of contingent. We kind of play it by year. We
don't want to be out there in the freezing cold
in there little tights that you were.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It is. It is a day, it is a couple
of days before Christmas, so it will be a little chilly.
And what you're going to do, what you have done
in the past, and what you're going to do again
this year with with Night to Shine is just so awesome.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah, that's that's a great event. If people have not.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Participated in volunteering for that before, it would be great
to get involved. That's done through the Faith.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Community Church and I think that's.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
FCC dot org. But yes, it is okay good, but
they always need volunteers for that. And Amy's Armor is
just blessed to be able to help the honored as
to find their prauma tire. And if they don't have
the funding for that, we generally have community members who
contribute to that and we do pay it forwards for
(25:09):
that population for that event, and then what the community
doesn't do, we'll.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Cover to make sure that everybody is dressed right for
that event, no matter what.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Night to Shine, long night to Shine.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Love it so so much.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, it's a great event.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I will listen. I'll promote anything that's going on that
you're doing. Okay, So if you have any reason for
taking advantage of these microphones, they're all yours. Absolutely, Thank you.
Doesn't matter if it's by phone or you come in here.
You've got a couch, it's always ready for you. Right.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Maybe it's someone of my volunteers.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
In next time, anytime, I would love it.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Get somebody else, it'd be great.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Thanks for coming in a window. A cad.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Abend agd.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Ad a.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Band. I don't
An All right, it's officially now a minute into the afternoon.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I told you before, I'm gonna tell you again this.
I'm gonna be playing some catch up on some things.
Well it really started yesterday, but it's gonna be happening
today and probably tomorrow as well. There's a lot of
stuff that I'm going to try to squeeze in here
before taking Thursday and Friday to be with family, which
(02:10):
I'm so much looking forward to. But this lady who's
on the couch right now across for me, everybody knows
Amy's armoire. Everybody knows Amy Anderson. I'm so glad you're here.
Thank you for popping in here and hopping on the
air with me at high noon here on this Tuesday.
(02:31):
It is Tuesday, right, Yes, it's Tuesday. You and I
are very similar where we're all We're always going one
hundred miles an hour in one direction or another and
just juggling multiple things at the same time. You are
one of the seriously one of the busiest ladies that
I know.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I'm not as busy as I am busy, but I'm
not as busy with the nonprofit as I was, simply
because for last year I've been taking care of my
mom a lot, and I have amazing people who have
just taken turns picking up the weight, and we've all
been doing it for each other as different things have
been happening. We just have such a great group of volunteers.
(03:11):
It's just absolutely amazing. We couldn't be doing what we're
doing without all of them.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oh no, no, no, absolutely not. For folks not familiar
with Amy's arm War, please do tell what is Amy's
arm War.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
So, Amy's Armore is a couple of things. It's a
thrift store, but that's not who we are.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
We are actually a non profit and the thrift store
is just the ongoing fundraiser essentially for our nonprofit. The
nonprofit has a mission to help support foster, adopt kin
and birth families and youth who have come from those
situations in ways that help stabilize them.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, and that's boys that is so abbreviated right there, because.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Do so much more than that, but just helping out kin,
next of kin and foster kids. Yeah, just even in
an emergency situation where it's Sunday night at ten o'clock
and there's a foster family that's in need. Yep, you've
(04:30):
got it all right there. You don't have all of it,
but you've got most of it. I think love is
like the main thing that is.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah, I feel like I have a connection to the
community and that's what makes us work. And I feel
like it doesn't matter if I have a first generation
college student who aged out of foster care who writes
me at midnight and says I want a Halloween costume
and I don't have enough money for one. Is that
(04:58):
something you guys will do? And I think to myself,
you know, it's not really an essential thing, but you
know what, I'm going to put it out to the
community and see what they think. Because I remember going
to college and I remember how important it was to
fit in and uh have the same stuff as everybody else,
and to have a kid not have a family to
(05:19):
reach out for that thing. This community becomes that family definitely,
and we solved it and and within an hour that
kid had his money for his hollowing costume.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I love. I love stuff like that. Yeah, you you
honestly could could write a book with the stories that
you've got that are probably near and dear to so
many hearts and so many people that you have played
a role in their lives on the sidelines without the community.
Spotlight shine and bright bright down on you. And that's
(05:52):
really yeah, that says something huge about you. You. Uh,
you had this vision, this, this dream, for lack of
a better term, to do something like this not an
easy task.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
No, I mean.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
So I was still working for corrections in the middle
of COVID. It was a really hard time for everybody,
and I had actually the day I decided to get done.
I still had two and a half years left to go,
but we had lost to women to overdose that day.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I said, you know enough.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
And I wanted to do something different to have a
greater impact on the community. I was working in restorative justice,
and I felt that was really impactful work. But even
when I was a correction officer, most of the people
that we incarcrate, even nationally, it's known that they have
(06:54):
spent some time in foster care. Anecdotally, I saw that firsthand.
I talk to these people and they come from hard
places and hurt people, hurt people, and if there was
a way for me to stop that cycle, then I
wanted to.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Figure out how to do that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
So I retired May twenty first of twenty twenty one.
In June first of twenty one, I opened my thrift store.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, so many of us here in Central Vermont remember
when you opened and you started doing this. And it's a.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Tiny little building, tiny little spot over behind soups and
greens that had no windows, one door in, one door out.
It was most people like were so uncomfortable. Of course,
I worked in jail, so it was fretty pretty comfortable
for me to have one way out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And look at what's happened. Look at what you've done
in our community. Look at what you've done with Night
to Shine, look at what you've done in so many
different ways. But look at what you've done in that space.
Now you've expanded it out, You've got the annex.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Now, yeah, I got to disagree with you, JD.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I haven't done anything except for light a candle, you know,
and and then you know, maybe created a big boat
that everybody hopped in and started paddling with me. But
I haven't done anything other than that is just give
the direction and hopefully a little bit of encouragent, encouragement
and inspiration potentially, because I feel like the world is
(08:29):
full of giving people right like, we all know suffrage,
we all know hurt and pain, and if there's a
way to alleviate that for other people, everybody wants to
do that, but it's like, how do we how do
we even find the ways to do it that are
most impactful? And I just figured if we can help
(08:52):
stabilize these children.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
And what I mean by that is a.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Statistically, we're not doing good on how often we move
children in the foster care system, and so my goal
is to reduce that movement, and if the children are
with a birth family or going to a birth family,
we'll also try to stabilize them there so that they
don't come back into care or don't come into care
(09:21):
to begin with. How great would that be? You know,
things have changed over the years. We used to be really,
really supportive of communities. There was no government that came
in and swooped in and helped, and we've kind of
gotten away from that. And you know, the government does
what they can with the money they're given and with
(09:42):
the system that's existing, but everybody knows it's flawed and
there are gaps. Everybody knows that, and so I'm just
trying to do what I can to partner with those agencies,
to partner with other agencies that do similar things without
(10:03):
recreating the wheel, helping people find the resources that are
already out there and making sure that we can fill
every need that comes our way.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Potentially, you're a pioneer, you really are. I think you're
a legend.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
With I do that's my grandson's name.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
With what you've done here in this community. I mean,
this is stuff that's that's sustained and it's really having
an incredible impact.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
It really is, I mean, I hope.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
So you've got your donation center that's set up on
Saturday mornings down at the old Tatrose Appliance building just
down the road. Yes, from nine.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
No, ten to two, ten to two, okay, ye bring
something that you have as long as it's in new
condition or good connection so.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
It doesn't have to be no. Like, we're also helping
the environment. So like if you have stuff that is stained, ripped,
tears holes, put it in a bag and say rags
and bring it to us. Salvation Army comes and gets it.
They bail it from material. They get seventy cents a
pound for that I think or something like that, and
it helps them. It helps the environment. They chop it up,
(11:17):
put in mattresses, shoes, whatever.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Real.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Yeah, so like it just I don't want people throwing
stuff away.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Just I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Yeah, just bring it to us and put it in
a separate bag and it goes right by the door
and out to Salvation Army and the other stuff will
will sell it and stuff that's in between. Sometimes we'll
give it to Berlin Police Department. We have a bin
for that, so we bring that to the homeless and
stuff if there's really warm weather stuff or even even
(11:46):
it's like warm wether stuff. I mean cold weather stuff,
but even warm weather stuff. Because I've had a lady
come in who was homeless and only she the only
thing she had with sweatpants and she had to rip
them off to have shorts. So you know, we have
a pay it forward system in the store too, but
we want to make sure people are warm in the
winter and not too hot in the summer.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, all the seasons. Yeah, you've got with the holidays
right in front of us. You have a vision of
trying to help a lot of kids. One hundred and
twenty eight kids to be exact, fifty two families correct
what's happening. You've got a big campaign that's happening right now.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
So, we we had a post up for a couple
of weeks and asked the families that we support if they,
you know, needed help this year and last year, I
think it was sixty seven kids that we.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Were able to help and that needed help.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
And so we had a lot of families sign up
this year, more than last year, and different families than
we typically get. And our organization isn't one of those
organizations that can only help somebody one year. We once
(13:06):
a family is connected to us, we're trying to continue
to help them. If a child goes home and they're
out of DCF custody, we'll support them for a year.
And we've supported families longer than that. We actually haven't
stopped supporting those families, and I hope to continue being
(13:26):
able to support all those families because ultimately, we don't
want kids to come back into foster care.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah. So, how you're calling this Amy's Gift project? How
can folks, I mean, this is the big important thing here.
How can folks get involved with trying to get back
to one hundred and twenty eight kids in Central vermat
(13:53):
here fifty two families. How can people get involved?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, so we on our website. It's the top thing
on our web site. So if you go to Amy's
Armor dot org, it's right there. There's a sign up
link there that has a sign up Genius. People can
Basically they're making a commitment in the sign up Genius
to purchase gifts for the child that they sign up for.
(14:17):
Each child was allowed to have five gifts to sign
up for with a total of one hundred dollars worth.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
You could just.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Buy one gift for a child, or you could buy
the whole child's items. If people buy one gift, you
know they're they're supposed to try to look at the
other gifts to try to kind of figure out how
much they should budget for that one particular gift. Sure,
depending on what the gifts are that the child put
(14:46):
on the list, with a grand total for each child
being one hundred dollars, just so that we can be equitable.
Sometimes you'll have a kid who's in a family of five,
and we'll get a donor that you know, really wants
to go overboard, and they spend three hundred on that
one kid, and then the other kids get eighty dollars
worth of things, and it's noticeable, and so we do
(15:07):
a last minute shuffle a lot of times to make
sure there's equity and families in particular. So that's the
reason we had to set a price tag on it,
just for equity.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
All right. I'm going to put this in the this
link in the comments here, but I'm on it right now.
Gifts are expected to be delivered unwrapped, yes, by the
twelfth of December.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
And we do the unwrapped on purpose because you know,
there's sometimes people make a mistake and they get the
wrong age group of something or.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Whatever.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
The parent wants to be able to see what it
is their child is going to get before they wrap
it up themselves. Ye. We do have wrapping paper. We
also donate to families. We don't have as much left
this year, so if you have wrapping paper to donate,
you're more than welcome to do that too.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
That's great to know. Anytime during your business hours bring
that in.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
You can bring wrapping paper to the story.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yes, all right, so you put the item. Each item
has the child's number written on that on that item, yes,
So it's very easy to keep track here.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yes, I would recommend that you like print out the
instructions for reference later, because you'll get a when you
sign up for a child, you'll get an email back
and it will have the child number, It will have
the gifts that you've signed up for. It will have
those things, but it won't have things like the deadlines
sure and where to drop stuff off or whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So if you're if you're doing this using your mobile phone,
just make sure you click full site. Go to the
the three lines at the top and click full site,
which is the easier.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Way to do absolutely, because I don't know, it's really clunky.
If you don't do that, it makes it so that
you only can see a couple of kids items at
a time, okay, and you can't scroll down to the
ones still waiting to be signed up for.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
All right, So Tuesday through Saturday from ten to three
is when you should bring your items. That's your business hours.
One fourteen North Main Street right here in Perry. Yes,
easy to park up back. There's designated parking right there.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Six spots behind our store also that are free.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And if you're in a rush, don't worry, just come in.
Somebody's going to help you. Out and we'll get your
stuff organized and ready to go into the hands of
that particular child on Christmas morning. Yeah, that's the goal here.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Yeah, that's the goal we have about Last I checked,
I didn't. I wasn't able to check this morning before
we went on air. But last I checked, we had
nearly one hundred kids still waiting to have a little
alf out there in the community to choose them to
purchase their gifts.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
How many kids waiting, I think it's.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Nearly one hundred.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
Last I checked, it was between ninety and one hundred.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
And there's a couple other things.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
If people have questions about the gift project, they can
email my team and that is not me directly. It
is Amy's Projects at Amy's armor dot org.
Speaker 4 (18:24):
And we'll put that in the link. It's a M
Y S.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Projects at Amy's armoir a R M I.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
R dot org.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Okay, got it right here.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And then we also if people hate shopping, I'm one
of those, so I can relate. There are some people
that have been really helpful parents who actually gave us
a link right to Amazon so you could you could
just order from the link that they put there, and
you could write this email address and ask what the
(19:01):
shipping address is and then it could come right to
my house essentially.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Wow yep.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And then if people don't even want to do that
online ordering, it can be complicated. One of the things
you have to remember when you do the online order
is to check the gift gift I forgot what it is,
gifts something, and that allows you to put the name
of the person and in this case it would be
the child identifier, so like child one B or whatever
(19:30):
it is with the gender and age and yeah. And
so if you don't want to do any of that
and you just want to send money and then I
can have some volunteers just order the things for you.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
You can do that too.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
We have a venmo which is at Amy's Armore nonprofit. Okay,
and we'll put that out there too. It's on my
website as well.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
It is all right, No, the PayPal is on my website. Actually,
the venmos on.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
My Facebook me with that Venmo more time.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
It's at Amy's Armoire nonprofit all one word.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Amy's a M Y S.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Armoir is a R M O I R E nonprofit
all one word.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Okay, I've got that right here. That's for Venmo.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Yeah, so we're hoping to get all those all those kids.
Christmas is to be a little bit better this year.
I know that it's it's tough out there. It's tough
for families financially, it's tough for people have stuff going on.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
It's yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
And taking a little bit of weight off of a
family at this time is uh is important.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
I think so about one hundred kids on the wait
list right now here in Central Vermont.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
Yeah, let's see, it's actually more than Central Vermont. JD.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I'm glad you mentioned that we had. Because we're a
state wide organization, a lot of people don't realize that
we are supporting families from Chittnham County, Franklin County, Hartford District,
Washington County, and Lamoyle County.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Okay, wow, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Yeah, we're connected to the foster adoption group all across
the state.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Well. Lund Family, it's incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Lund Family is incredible and they do they do a
great amount for their adoptive families that sign up. Most
of the families that signed up with us this year
were kinship families actually aunts, uncles, grandparents raising their relatives.
Might have been a soccer coach that knew the child before,
(21:39):
and that's considered fictive kin. But those people that were
connected to a child before something happened that their parents
were not able to take care of them at the moment,
and these families have stepped in and there's far more
of those in the state than there are foster children.
There's about seven thousand kids and kinsjep Care.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
You can this is your opportunity right here. This is
your chance to make a difference. And it doesn't have
to be you don't have to be uh you know,
some some big superhero here. Just every little bit counts.
Speaker 4 (22:17):
It really helps.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Stop into Amy's Armoir, do some Christmas shopping there. The
rewards that this reaps is huge in our community. Your
dollar is gonna is going to go very far when
it's spent locally like this. This your whole team, Robin Ian,
everyone there, Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
Those are my three leads.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And then I got Bonnie as a lead over at
the Bonnie and Rebecca as the leads over at the
donation Center.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Great people, amazing, wonderful people have been in there so
many times and I love it. What you don't want
to do is be in a rush when you stop
into Amy's are More.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
It's a big store.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, it's a big store. You need to allow yourself
some time to browse around. There's something for everybody. What
you're doing in our community with this program is so important,
it's so wonderful. Well, we'll take this episode, We'll share it,
We'll spread it as much as we can. I'll get
you back on the air here anytime that you want
(23:23):
if we need you.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yeah, pretty soon. We got to do our yeah Christmas
PJ event.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, is that happening.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
I'm hoping.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
So are you willing if people bought, have people, if
people sign up to sponsor to get you out there
in your Christmas onesie?
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Are you willing to do it again?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I love doing that last I did it last year
with your husband.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It was a great fundraiser. It's really fun.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
It's you get out on main Street. If you got
anybody out there that you want to get out on
main Street and a Christmas onesie, Yeah, Like all you
got to do is say okay, I'm going to donate
to Amy's Armor, and you get the Onesie forum and
out there they.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Oh yeah, do it as a group.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Last year we had four or five of us out there.
It was super fun.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I loved it. It wins the date on that.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
We usually do it the week before Christmas, weather kind
of contingent. We kind of play it by year. We
don't want to be out there in the freezing cold
in there little tights that you were.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It is. It is a day, it is a couple
of days before Christmas, so it will be a little chilly.
And what you're going to do, what you have done
in the past, and what you're going to do again
this year with with Night to Shine is just so awesome.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah, that's that's a great event. If people have not.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Participated in volunteering for that before, it would be great
to get involved. That's done through the Faith.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Community Church and I think that's.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
FCC dot org. But yes, it is okay good, but
they always need volunteers for that. And Amy's Armor is
just blessed to be able to help the honored as
to find their prauma tire. And if they don't have
the funding for that, we generally have community members who
contribute to that and we do pay it forwards for
(25:09):
that population for that event, and then what the community
doesn't do, we'll.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Cover to make sure that everybody is dressed right for
that event, no matter what.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Night to Shine, long night to Shine.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Love it so so much.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Yeah, it's a great event.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
I will listen. I'll promote anything that's going on that
you're doing. Okay, So if you have any reason for
taking advantage of these microphones, they're all yours. Absolutely, Thank you.
Doesn't matter if it's by phone or you come in here.
You've got a couch, it's always ready for you. Right.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Maybe it's someone of my volunteers.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
In next time, anytime, I would love it.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Get somebody else, it'd be great.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Thanks for coming in a window. A cad.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Abend agd.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Ad a.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Band. I don't
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