Three Cheers for the First Thrift Bus Tour!
By Jill Sommers, Senior Marketing Communications Coordinator
The first-ever Tucson Thrift Bus Tour has officially pulled back into the station, and what a ride it was!
In an effort to bring our mission education and our love of thrifting together, GISA set out to create a brand-new experience for our community this year. Inspired by a concept from Goodwill of New Mexico, we brought the Thrift Bus to the Sonoran Desert on August 15; and we’re so excited to report that it was a resounding success!
A big THANK YOU goes out to all of the teams and folks who helped bring this idea to life, both in the weeks leading up to the event and throughout the big day including our co-host United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona.
We welcomed 48 Thrift Bus attendees to our HQ campus, where everyone hopped aboard a Gray Line coach bus and set off for a full day of Goodwill mission education, treasure hunting, and plenty of fun along the way! The mission-minded generosity started before we’d even boarded the bus, with attendees donating 22 bags of goods as they checked in.
Our jam-packed route included stops at our Ina Store and Youth Impact Center, our Oro Valley store, our Dodge store and Career Center, and our 4th Avenue store and Metro Youth Center. From thrift stores to career services to youth programming, attendees got to experience just how many sides there are to Goodwill. Along the way we found out this wasn’t just a Tucson affair, some of our guests even made the trip down from Phoenix to join in on the fun! This thrifting enthusiasm definitely showed up on the sales floor, we saw sales spikes at all four stores on the route as well as in the New Goods department.
To keep everyone entertained between stops, we packed the day with games and giveaways, including a thrifting scavenger hunt/bingo and mission trivia. Because what’s a Thrift Bus Tour without a little friendly competition?
But the real win? Our attendees left with a better understanding of the mission behind the Goodwill they know and love.
According to our attendee survey, 100% of respondents agreed that they know more about Goodwill’s mission now than they did before the tour. Even better, 100% of survey respondents also said they feel more likely to shop and donate to Goodwill in the future. That connection between mission education and community engagement is exactly what we hoped the Thrift Bus Tour would create!
And it wasn’t just the mission education that made an impression. Attendees had plenty of kind words for the teams who helped make their day special. One Phoenix attendee shared, “Coming from Phoenix, it was so worth it. Everyone from the event down to the stores was so nice, and I learned so much.” Another attendee gave a shoutout to the entire team saying, “The staff were amazing! So kind, and fun. I sure hope you do this again soon!! We will join every-time!! It was perfect from the bus driver to the food to the staff at the shops. Everyone was happy and in a good mood! Thank you a million times over.”
Well done, everyone!
And, perhaps the most important metric of all, based on the number of shopping bags we saw stashed under the bus, it’s safe to say our guests shopped ’til they dropped!
The first Thrift Bus Tour may have started with one bus, but it took a whole lot of GISA teamwork to make the day happen. From the teams who welcomed and served our guests at each stop to the folks behind the scenes who helped plan, coordinate, feed, entertain and keep everything moving, thank you for showing our community that their donations and shopping create an impact beyond the sales floor.
Here’s to a successful first tour, a bus full of happy thrifters, and hopefully many more stops on the Thrift Bus in the future!
