Fundraising Ideas!

If you've been following us on Facebook, you already know that we are looking into moving our operations to a mini storage facility just up the street from my house.  It will be a great opportunity for us to grow and to keep up with the needs of our community. 
Although my dream location would be a fabulous retail store front in the heart of Port Orchard, moving into a storage unit will be a huge step in the right direction and for the right price.  Most retail spaces go for $10 per square foot and the storage unit is only about $1 per square foot, plus I won't have to pay electricity or any other fees that go with a retail space! 
However, rent is rent and when you're only charging $3 per trade at most, it would take a whole lot of trades just to cover the rent and then there would be nothing left for the supplies!  So, fundraising it is!
Holli Sergent, Development Committee Chair (or Fundraising Guru as I like to call her), will be meeting with me on Monday to go over our fundraising options.  Two heads are better than one, but I figure I've got 100 "traders" let's get their thoughts too! 
Please email me or comment on Facebook your money making ideas, so we can take this show on the road!

Thanks for reading and as always Happy Trading!
~Michele

KCTP Credit Points Donation

Over the weekend I met a wonderful first time "trader" named Tammi.  She came in with a couple of boxes of clothes that she wanted to trade in and found some treasures for her little peanut.  Of course like many of our parents, she ended up with a lot of KCTP credit points and decided to keep an account open.

Later that weekend, I received an email from Tammi:

"My husband and I prayed over the amount you said I had and we would love to donate 100.00 credit to some family that could truly need it and use it. We have a lot more clothes to give you which we won't get to them until after summer break since we go camping a lot. I am sure you know a family that can truly use 100.00 credit with you?..... You can give it away as your choice we trust that you would do the right thing. I personally know that at a time in my past if someone gave me 100.00 credit to use on clothes I would have been very grateful and blessed......Giving this gift of clothing to someone that could truly use and need it would be such a HUGE BLESSING to us. I truly love what you are doing and if there is anything I could do to help you please please let me know."

So now I am working with local agencies that help families in need to find out where I can donate these clothes to or extend an invitation for these families to come and pick out clothes for free.

If you would like to follow in Tammi's footsteps and donate a portion of your KCTP credit points, please let me know.  You can also email me to find out your credit balance.

I would like to extend a heart felt Thank You to Tammi and her family for being the first in hopefully a long line of KCTP "Traders" that will give back to our community anyway we can!

Thanks for reading and as always, Happy Trading!
~ Michele Evans

Fishing for Complements!!

Yes, that is exactly what I am doing and I'm not afraid to say it!

The Kids Clothing Trading Post is growing faster than weeds!  There are so many clothing items that I can't even fit them on the racks and so they sit in boxes in my house.  I'm out of room and our only solution at this time is to build a storage shed on our property that will house all of the clothes in a retail store fashion.  So it's fundraising time!

We are in the process of writing letters that will be sent out to local businesses requesting donations to help us build this store.  What these businesses really want to read about is what the people that actually use this service think.

So here is where you come in!  I'd love to hear what you have to say about the trading post!  The comments that we use may be edited for size only, NOT content.  Your name will appear as First L., City.  For example Michele E., Port Orchard.

Please email your comments to michele.evans@wavecable.com or you can post your comment on Facebook!

Thanks for reading and Happy Trading!
~Michele Evans

Tips for trading!

Hello "Traders",

After being open for a while and seeing the rush of people that come each day to trade, I've come up with a few tips and requests to help make everyone's trading experience more enjoyable and make it go a bit more smoothly!  Please take a moment to read over these and let me know if you have any questions!


1. Read over the Guidelines for Acceptable Items and go through the clothes that you want to trade to make sure that you're not lugging over items that I won't be able to take as trade ins.

2. Have the clothes "right side out". When the clothes are inside out, it takes longer to go through them and asses the value, making your wait time longer.

3. If you can, please have the clothes folded or laid out neatly. This will also save time. Digging through giant garbage bags of clothes to sort them takes a lot of time and you may not want to wait that long.

4. Try to match up the 2 or 3 piece outfits. Your credit amount could be higher if items are counted as 2 or 3 piece sets and not on their own.

5. If it takes you more than one trip to your car to load up all the boxes or bags of clothes, then please schedule a time with me to drop them off so that I can go through them prior to your trading day. That way when you do come to trade, you'll have your credit amount waiting for you and you won't have to spend so much time waiting for me to sort through them. To schedule a drop off just email me at michele.evans@wavecable.com

6. Get here at least 15 minutes before closing time to ensure that you are able to get your trade on! I close promptly at closing time, so that I can get back to my other jobs of being a mom and a wife. The average trade takes 15 minutes, so please give yourself enough time to get here before closing.

Growing Pains

In just two days the KTCP has had over $1300 worth of inventory come in! That's 600+ new pieces of clothing! Once again KCTP is experiencing major growing pains and I need your help! I'm trying to find an alternative to running the KCTP out of my home, my space has been maxed out.


There really is no budget for this since the trading fee is only $3/trade and I don't want to charge more.

There is the idea of running it out of a mini self storage unit in the area. I've called a couple but I would need one that would allow customers to drive up and visit my space. Most storage facilities are gated and you would need a security code to get in. If you know of one in Port Orchard that would work, please let me know.

I've also thought about getting a storage shed to place in the yard. I have the space for it, but the initial cost for the shed can be upwards of $2000.00. If I could find one that could be donated, I would need one at least 10'x12'. If you know or have one that could be donated to the Kids Clothing Trading Post, please let me know.

Any other ideas? I've looked into retail spaces in the area, but I can't afford them and I've already asked my husband if we could just buy a bigger house, but that didn't work either!

Let me know what y'all think!

Thanks for reading and Happy Trading!

~Michele