“I first learned about COVER a number of years ago when my partner started volunteering. Then I retired and I said ‘Well I’ve got some free time. I will check out to see what I can do.’ I found the COVER store and said ‘This is where I want to be!’

“I just love the people that I’m working with. They just make my day happy and thankful and part of a community. I also very much enjoy the customers that come in. There are some regulars that we know each other by name and it’s fun to joke with them about what’s in the store, what they absolutely can’t live without and I just love the message that we’re keeping all of these items from going into the landfill. We are helping people of all walks of life decide to reuse items that are practically new.

“I also love when people come and pick out the craziest, gnarliest thing, and say ‘My hobby is to redo these items to make them look brand new and then I give them away to my friends’. There is a guy that always does that, rusted hammers and the like, cleans them up and gives them away to friends.

“The other thing I like is when a gem comes in and we look it up on our phones to see where the origin was, usually they’re from Europe or something and it’s just nice to know that someone else is going to be having it in their home when it is finished in the home it came from.