The Legacy's breaking the bank with their successful expansion
In which Dale tours the arts and crafts resale store, whose profits support the senior center
The Legacy store in the Southpoint Shopping Center is full of any number of surprises. One is that it’s gone from a cramped 1,500 square-foot space to a spacious 3,000 square feet. Earlier in the year, The Legacy was closed for six weeks during construction before re-opening in July. Now, it’s better organized, and it’s easier to move around the store. Two, it’s got an amazing inventory of items “gently” used by crafters of all sorts. It’s like a Michael’s but small and intimate, a place where people get to know each other and no one is named Michael. Three, it’s got only two and a half staff and 104 volunteers who make it work, and do they ever like the work they do. Four, it’s a reflection of the local crafting community with so many talented individuals supporting many different interests. They willingly share what they know, and everything that they use has a real value. Five, it’s maybe the most innovative store in town, an example of a sustainable development initiative such as what the EU calls the “Circular Economy.”
“The circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible. In this way, the life cycle of products is extended.”
With brick-and-mortar retail stores closing and others struggling to stay open, here’s a store that’s bucking the trend and doing so without any computerized inventory or direct online sales, just a cash register and things that have been hand-marked with price tags. More important is the warmth, kindness and camaraderie you find here. I can only imagine that the busy bees in a hive are buzzing like this when making honey.
A few weeks ago, I ran into the Board President of the Sebastopol Area Senior Center, Gary Bachelor, at Retrograde Coffee, and he told me that The Legacy brought in $50,000 in the first month after reopening. I asked him how that was possible. “That’s an awful lot of buttons,” I said. I told Gary I need to learn more about The Legacy.
I met with Joanne Cooter, the store manager, and Brittany Roney, the assistant store manager, along with Katie Davis, the Executive Director of the Sebastopol Area Senior Center. Katie is particularly happy to see that the expanded sales are bringing in new revenue, all of which goes to support the budget of the Senior Center and is helping make up for the loss of funding from the city of Sebastopol. Joanne, Brittany and Katie gave me a tour.
Museum-quality window installations
We started outside, looking in at two large window installations, both of which were created by Mena Lazar who has been a volunteer for six years. One installation features black-and-white photos curated from the Library of Congress Archive collection, images that reflect her admiration for the unsung heroes of fabric arts.
The women and children depicted (in the photos) include immigrant workers, homesteaders, wives of elected officials, and descendants of the enslaved.
Their intricate quilts, garments, detailed embroidery, and needlework, contributed significantly to America’s artistic heritage.
— Poster in window display
“I wanted to highlight the beauty and skill of these women and children,” Mena explained to Katie Davis in a recent profile. “Their work is not just art; it’s a piece of history that deserves recognition.”
The second display is a colorful Pride-themed exhibition. Mena travels about an hour each way to volunteer at The Legacy, feeling a strong connection to her grandmother who was an expert seamstress. Mena likes to work in the “Memory Lane” section, where she prices the vintage and antique donations, which include linens, doilies, embroidery, and more.
A steady stream of donations
With the expansion, there’s now a separate door for people to drop off donations. And The Legacy gets lots of donations, usually boxes and bags full of stuff, including craft and art supplies, fabric, vintage, sewing patterns and raw wool. And buttons. Volunteers might take a box home, sort through the items to see what’s valuable, wash items that will be sold, and then price and package the items. The basic question, says Joanne, is “an item going to pay its rent?”
They get a lot of sewing machines, many in need of repair. Joanne and Brittany went to Ohio recently for a four-day training session on Singer sewing machines. “We were taught how to service and restore these machines,” said Brittany. Joanne added: “It’s hard to find people who know how to do it anymore.”
With the inflow of bags and boxes, I asked Joanne and Brittany if they ever catch up on the incoming donations. “No,” said Joanne bluntly. She was going to explain herself but a woman came in the door and handed her a bag of supplies. Joanne asked if she wanted a receipt and that was that. Another bag to set down next to several boxes.
A friend of mine said that her mother was an excellent seamstress and knitter, and when she passed away, she held on to her mother’s supplies, equipment and unfinished projects for months before finally bringing them to The Legacy. She took solace knowing that others would benefit from the materials her mother had collected and cared for.
Wish book
If you can’t find something in the store, you can write down a request in a book. You might be asking for something obscure like a fabric stripper or a rare kind of cloth. Customers and volunteers alike page through the book. Joanne believes that many of the requests receive a response. “It’s magical,” said Brittany.
Holiday stuff
Katie Davis explained that they have a storage unit for holiday stuff. “We will bringing back the holiday store this year, which we haven’t had for three years,” she said. “In years past,” said Brittany, “we had a separate location for a holiday store but this year we will be able to combine them in one location. We have a lot of people who are really into it.”
The expanded Legacy
The Legacy got started in 1995 as a table at the Senior Center and had various managers up until Nick Vannucci came in August 2013. Nick was the manager of The Legacy until he passed away in 2022.
The store closed in mid-March for the expansion project. They thought it would take a couple weeks, but it took six weeks of volunteer effort to re-open May 1st. The owners of the shopping center paid for demolition of the wall between the old space and the new space. Sebastopol Hardware donated paint. Some of the store’s contents was taken home by volunteers during construction. They moved everything to one side of the space while painting and replacing carpet and then moved every to the other side of the space. After all that work, they are extremely happy with the results.
“We have aisles now,” said Brittany, pointing out where the old store ended and the new expansion begins.
“Everything is better organized, and it’s easier to shop,” said Joanne, pointing out the clearly marked sections of the store — sewing, knitting, beadwork, embroidery, scrapbooking and more.
Katie said that The Legacy sells a lot of small stuff, but it adds up. “We always joke that we make $50,000 by selling one 25-cent button at a time. We do more than 100 transactions a day,” she said. Doubling the square footage has led to a doubling of sales. “We couldn’t have had this many customers in here as we do now,” said Joanne, looking across the room, which is full of people.
In the cramped quarters before expansion “people wanted to get in and get out,” said Brittany. “Now, we have room for mothers with strollers and people in wheelchairs, and we have places for people to sit down.” Nearby a volunteer named Hattie was helping a child with a large glass jar full of blue and white marbles on the floor. “We’d never have been able to do that before,” said Brittany.
Staff and Volunteers
Brittany has a degree in Fine Arts and she began volunteering on Saturdays before she applied for the position of assistant manager. This is a job she hopes lasts “forever.” Joanne said she didn’t like school growing up; she worked a job for ten years that she didn’t like in the medical field and then found her herself working a few shifts a week at the Legacy before eventually becoming the store manager. Kathleen Johnson who recently became a part-time employee had been a volunteer for nine or ten years. All of them wrangle stuff, assist volunteers and help customers.
Everyone in the pool of volunteers offers their knowledge and expertise. “That’s what we love about the volunteers,” said Joanne. “Everybody brings something to the plate.”
A volunteer from Cazadero puts in about a 125 hours a month sorting thread. “She’s a fiber specialist,” explains Brittany, “and she deciphers the difference between all these different threads. We have specialty threads that you really can’t find on the market anymore.”
“We have lace and trims,” said Brittany. “Every single one of these trim cards was cut out by a volunteer. Each card was hand-wound. You can’t really find lace and trims elsewhere.”
Fostering a strong network of dedicated volunteers is what makes the Legacy so successful — it would be impossible to pay people to do what they do and still turn a profit. “Without the support of the volunteers, this place wouldn’t exist,” said Brittany. The same month in which they doubled sales was also the month with the most volunteer hours — 1,200. And because of the volunteers, The Legacy generates a handsome profit that supports the Senior Center.
“Even before when The Legacy was half this size, the Senior Center wouldn’t be what it is without The Legacy,” said Katie. “This is the most productive thing we do. Re-opening and expanding has been incredible to see how much productivity the store has.”
“It’s not just our volunteers who offer help,” said Joanne. “Our customers will help others as well and join in a conversation. It’s a community-based place here. In a lot of stores like supermarkets, you don’t get people talking to each other. Here they do. So many good conversations happen within these walls.” It’s what brings people back.
Before leaving, I asked how they liked being next to the Soulful cannabis dispensary. Joanne, Brittany and Katie looked at each other and smiled, seeing if they agreed to reveal another secret surprise. “Let’s just say we notice that a lot of people visit both places when they come,” said one of them.
The Legacy is open Monday through Saturday, from 10 am - 4 pm.
The Chamber of Commerce is holding a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Legacy on
Friday, August 23 at 5:30 pm.
Speaking of Legacy I wish that you would ask the Senior Center to post a Legacy Story in the Store. The Senior Center Asst Director, Beverly Martin and her partner Julie Jones started the Legacy with a UHaul full of craft items left when Bev's daughter's mother in law passed away. They started it in an empty storefront in the Lucky's shopping center.
A fantastic resource and excellent news report. Wow.
These Sebastopol Times stories are valuable; altruism lives!
Frustrating that so few people know your journalism exists…
Thank you.