Age, Changing Times Thin Ranks of Hospital Thrift Shop Volunteers

Annie Overn spent years pacing the halls of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, willing her little girl to recover from a series of illnesses caused by an immune deficiency.

When her daughter died, she stopped making the anxious trips to the hospital and started driving to the thrift store across the street instead.

For more than 20 years, Overn, 73, has volunteered at least two days a week in the large, dusty room filled to bursting with stuffed animals, vintage clothing and odds and ends from a thousand different lives. It’s her way of giving something back to an institution that was there for her for so many years.

Though most items cost less than $10, the low-tech, low-budget efforts of “a bunch of little old ladies,” as they call themselves, make a huge difference for the world-renowned hospital, said Chief Operating Officer Lise Luttgens.

The 99-year-old hospital treats more than 200,000 children each year from throughout the world. Many wind up there because they have injuries or conditions that are too serious to be treated elsewhere.

In the last 2 1/2 years, the thrift shop and the volunteer groups affiliated with it have given more than $3 million to the hospital. The thrift store alone raised nearly $300,000 last year.

The total, which came from sales and from other fund-raisers held by the volunteer groups, paid for hospital equipment to perform new surgical techniques.

But even as the women in the thrift store toil away in this, their busiest season, some of them, in their 70s and 80s, wonder how much longer their institution--powered for 70 years by a mostly volunteer, mostly female, mostly older work force--will be able to continue.

“At one time, there were a lot of us, and it has dwindled down because of our ages,” lamented Overn, looking at a recent list of regular volunteers and shaking her head at how many of the names need to be crossed out. “A lot of our girls have passed away.”

Not many new faces are replacing them. Most middle-class women who a generation or two ago might have devoted their energies to volunteer work now have full-time jobs.

Fifteen years ago, in addition to the main Childrens Hospital store on Sunset Boulevard, there were six other thrift shop branches scattered throughout the county. Now, mostly because of a lack of volunteers, there are three branches--and all are feeling the pinch of a lack of volunteers.

Other hospital thrift shops dependent upon a volunteer army of mostly well-to-do women are suffering similar fates, said Joy Ragland, a regional advisor with the California Assn. of Hospitals and Healthcare Systems who has given seminars on managing hospital thrift stores.

Across California, the ranks of hospital volunteers have dropped from 180,000 10 years ago to 130,000 this year, Ragland said.

Many surviving thrift shops have cut their hours, hired paid workers or added new ventures such as selling items on consignment, said Priscilla Gamb, the volunteer director at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. Even the Childrens Hospital thrift store already has four paid staff people to handle heavy lifting.

Suzanne Lapis, who coordinates the 29 volunteer groups that raise money for Childrens Hospital and run the thrift stores, predicted that her stores too will someday be staffed almost completely by paid employees.

But in the meantime, the women say they will take whatever steps are necessary to keep the cash flowing to the hospital.

The volunteer groups and the thrift store aim to raise another $3 million by 2002 to create a cardiology endowment for the hospital’s heart institute.

Volunteer Sue Ann Gordon lost a grandson to leukemia at the hospital, and offers her time at both the main thrift store and one in Burbank.

“Without that staff there that afternoon 1/8her grandson died 3/8, to help us and counsel us and talk to us and take us out in the hallway,” Gordon’s voice trailed off. “My part is small. I just move stuff around and dust and try to make things look attractive. It’s our way of helping children.”

By far the most revered worker is Anne O’Melveny Wilson, who for nearly 30 years has overseen both the 29 volunteer groups and the thrift store itself. She also served as president of the hospital’s board of directors.

Until she became ill recently, Wilson appeared at the store every day, and she made it a point to visit the hospital many times each week.

“To meet Anne Wilson is to fall under her spell,” Gordon said. “You see those eyes and feel her generosity and you just want to get right behind her.”

Many credit Wilson’s passion with keeping them involved, because turning the contents into cash for the hospital is not easy work, especially since many volunteers suffer from ailing health.

The store has a boutique section of higher priced and higher quality clothing, its neat bins full of crutches and ski poles stacked side by side and its cabinets glittering with collectibles.

But the back room is a different story. Beneath a sign that proclaims “Bless This Mess,” everything must be sorted, cataloged and priced.

Gordon likened going through a daunting pile of a person’s possessions to “conquering Mt. Everest.”

As a friend dove in to begin sorting on a recent day, Gordon said, “We’ve got to tie a rope to her ankle so we can pull her out.”

Unearthing layers of clothes, diaries and a mishmash of objects of someone who has recently died can be poignant, she added. “You put together a profile. You become a Dick Tracy,” she said.

On a recent Monday, one volunteer emerged from a morning of picking through the lifelong possessions of a feline lover and was covered from head to toe in cat hair.

“You come out of there thinking ‘Holy mackerel, couldn’t someone have dry cleaned?” Gordon said.

Of course, as many of the women point out, working in the thrift shop can be just plain fun, and a welcome ticket out of suburbia and into the vibrant activity of Sunset Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.

Overn remembers an infamous tote bag, for example. Although she can’t quite remember the year, she clearly recalls the day a wealthy woman’s estate was brought into the store. Its contents included a bulging bag of what everyone thought was costume jewelry.

“I brought it home and started cataloging it,” Overn said. “I started to say, ‘white metal bracelet with large clear stones,’ and then I realized they were diamonds.” Every single piece was real, and garnered the hospital thousands of dollars--after Overn and her daughter spent a giggly evening trying it all on. Over the years, Gordon said, you see a lot of customers of all types. Her favorites are those she feels she can help, such as the woman whose little boy finally recovered enough from his illness for her to seek a job. She came across the street to the thrift store to purchase suitable clothes for her job interview.

“You dress her up and you find her some shoes and you find her a suit,” she said. “It’s really fun.”