This November 26 is a big day for everyone at Alpine Shop. It’s the second annual Small Business Saturday, when people across the country come out and shop to support their favorite local businesses. We recently celebrated our 38th birthday here in the St Louis area and we look forward to serving your outdoor adventure needs for 38 more!
To celebrate this day, we will provide $50 in Alpine Shop Cash to the first 25 people to walk through the doors of any of our three stores. This Alpine Shop Cash will work pretty much like cash (with some exceptions) and will only be good on Small Business Saturday, 11/26, during normal store hours. You can also get a one-time $25 statement credit from American Express when you use your registered or linked American Express Card on Small Business Saturday to make a purchase of $25 or more at a small business.
UPDATE: As of Sunday, December 5, we are up to 800 coats collected. So, we are extending the deadline to this coming Sunday, Dec. 11. You have one more week to donate a gently used coat or sweater at any of our stores and receive a 15% Off coupon for one clothing item for each and every coat you donate. If we get the same sort of response this week that we did just this past weekend, we may get over our 2000 coat goal and pull names for four $100 Alpine Shop gift cards.
In November of 2010, Alpine Shop decided to put a call out to the St. Louis and Columbia communities with one goal in mind: collect 1000 coats in 30 days to donate to those in need during the winter months. We had gathered 373 jackets the year before and had been dismayed to discover just how many people were still left out in the cold.
The response last year was nothing short of amazing. Over 2000 coats, jackets and sweaters for all ages and genders were donated at our three stores. Here’s some footage from last year’s efforts:
The 2011 Drive Begins Monday, November 14
This year, once again, we’ve teamed up with the national organization One Warm Coat to help collect clean, gently used coats. And this year, we’ve raised the goal to 2000 coats. Except, we’re going to try to do it in less time than ever before. Last year, we were still trying to collect coats when one of the worst cold-snaps of the year hit us. We don’t want that to happen again. So this year, we’ll be collecting for 21 days—from Monday, Nov. 14 through Sunday, December 4 at all three Alpine Shop locations.
To help reach the goal, Alpine Shop is offering a free coupon for 15% off the purchase of a new jacket or clothing item in their stores for every jacket or sweater donated. If we hit our goal of 2000 donated coats, Alpine Shop will celebrate by giving away $100 gift certificates to four lucky coat donors.
Alpine Shop has made donating simple. Just bring your clean, gently used coats and jackets to any Alpine Shop location. Bring your coats inside the store and check them in with one of the store’s outfitters to make sure you receive your coupons and get entered into the drawing. Then, Alpine Shop and One Warm Coat take care of the rest. Donated coats will be split among organizations in St. Louis, including: Sunshine Ministries, St. Patrick Center, Coats for Kids and Edgewood Children’s Center.
“As much as we love being outside, we also know this time of year can be hard on families struggling to simply stay warm,” says Russell Hollenbeck, Alpine Shop owner. “We know our communities will do everything they can to help. We’re just trying to do our part.”
About One Warm Coat
One Warm Coat is a national non-profit organization that supports and encourages coat drives. It helps individuals, groups, companies and organizations across the country collect coats and deliver them to local agencies that distribute the coats free to people in need. More than one million coats have been provided to those in need at no cost since its inception in 1992.
For 17 years, Alpine Shop has always had two distinct Swap Celebrations: a Spring Swap dedicated to bikes, boats, camping gear and all warm-weather pursuits, and the Winter Swap devoted to all things done outside in the cold including skiing, snowboarding and playing in the snow. So for the 18th year, of course, we threw all of that out the window.
As of Monday, October 17 at 10 am, Alpine Shop Kirkwood and Columbia are ready to accept your used items into the Swap. Bring them in early to avoid the line. If you prefer to leave things until the last minute, please note that ALL used gear registration needs to be finished by 5 pm on Friday, Oct. 21. More than likely, this means you need to be in line at 4 pm at the latest to check-in your gear. As we continue to improve the Swap to make sure our lines don’t stretch back for hours on Friday night, that same technology has forced us to make some changes in how we do some things. Check-in is one of those things.
We’ll still open the tent at 7 pm on Friday night. We’ll still have people tailgating for the tent opening hours before then. You’ll still find the tent filled with great prices on used and clearance items. (Or, you’ll still see the money coming in from the items you’re selling!)
You will find a few changes inside our stores, however. All of our new-gear sales will begin when we open our doors first thing in the morning in Kirkwood, Chesterfield and Columbia (or on-line at alpineshop.com). If you’re just interested in new gear deals, you no longer have to wait until the 7 pm starting time anymore. Also, we’ll have Early Bird and Night Owl deals on new gear on both Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 22-23 and Sat. and Sun., Oct. 29-30. You can find those limited time specials on page 3 of our on-line new-gear sale catalog here.
Used gear sales are open in Kirkwood and Columbia on Friday, Oct. 21 from 7 pm–11 pm; Sat., Oct. 22 from 9 am—9 pm and Sun., Oct. 23 from 11 am—6 pm.
Outdoor Nation was a unique and exciting experience. The 2011 summit I attended took place in St. Paul, Minn. at the University of Minnesota – St. Paul and included about 95 young people ages 16 – 28 from all across the Midwest. While the majority of participants were from the Twin Cities-area there was also a large group of high school students from Chicago and representatives from as far away as Texas!
Issues and Concerns
We began the summit discussing obstacles that prevent youth from spending time outside. The issues brought up ranged from safety concerns in inner cities, to lack of outdoor education in school curriculum, to the rising dependence on technology. We discussed our concerns in broad terms, and through a series of 6 person discussions, followed by large-group votes, narrowed down our broad topics to specific issues we, as a whole, wanted to address. From these specific issues we broke into several small groups to come up with program ideas that we could then implement, and the top four ideas received seed money provided from Outdoor Nation to put their plans into action!
Decisions and Developments
It was neat to be involved in the decision process that lead to implementable, outdoor, youth programs. The four ideas chosen were all excellent and spanned a broad range of topics including: helping start community gardens, mentoring elementary and high school aged youth and trying to influence political leaders. The majority of the participants were from Minneapolis area, so all the programs developed were for that area, although each has the potential to expand to include other regions in the Midwest.
In addition to seeing the existing programs grow, I hope the summits move to new cities each year so they will continue to get a diverse group of participants and expand the reach of their programs throughout the country. I am very glad to have had the chance to participate in this program and to be involved in the initiatives that resulted from the summit, I am excited to see it grow in years to come!
