During the day I participated in the United Way Day of Caring for my local Aetna office.  I don't officially report to Allentown, but since I live here, I am included in their emails so I can keep up with what is going on.  I think this is my 5th year participating here and I always get something different out of the day.  This year I helped paint the "gym" at Lehigh Valley Children's Center.  Siehara went to a different branch of this child care from about 15 mos-4 years old, until she left to go the the pre-K program in the school district.  My mom also worked for this company for a few years back in the 80's.  While we were there, we found out that the site lead of the Allentown office is on their board of directors, as well.  It was a lot of fun and very gratifying to help make a nicer play area for the kids.  I put pics on FB.  Here is a link in case you are not on there.  

www.facebook.com/media/set/

At night, I went to work at the store.  There, we were having a Dress for Success event with the women of Whitehall's Chamber of Commerce.  They brought in women from different areas who cannot afford to buy interview/work clothes and may lack the skills necessary to start their career search or get back into the workforce.  They did a few different workshops on basic interview skills, what to wear, how to speak, and resume writing.  There were about 10 women who attended and probably the same amount of women who came from the Chamber of Commerce to present the program.  

There was one woman in particular who I know benefited greatly from the event.  She came in a bit early to start looking around at clothes... she was pretty shy and leary about looking for nice clothes.  She said that she mostly just wears jeans. My coworkers helped her pick out a few things and then the program started.  They used her as a model to show off what TO wear and what NOT to wear. She had fun being the guinea pig.  Afterwards, the "fashion consultant" from the Chamber helped her to pick out clothes from the donations, as well as a few things from the store, that would help her to get on her way.   It turned out that she was the perfect size to get a bunch of stuff from the free stuff.  While she was trying things on, our district manager and the woman from the organization were going over the items and prices, and she cringed when she realized how much it was going to cost.  Our district manager came up to me and told me that the woman had been referred to this program by Turning Point, which is an organization that helps battered women get out of their situations.  She said that corporate Dress Barn was supposed to be sending a $25 gift card to us for the event to give away, but it had not come yet.  She said that this woman would be our “winner" when it comes in, and also came up with a 30% off coupon she had in her briefcase.  Needless to say, the woman walked out of there with a huge smile on her face, a bag of suit separates, and a beautiful scarf that she ended up paying about $5 for; plus she has 3 other outfits on hold waiting for the gift card to come in so she can come back for them.  THAT is what makes my job at the store so worth the exhaustion I feel at the end of the week!