Hey everyone, Mayor Taylor Huard here and today for locally yours, we're at the Dive Spot thrift shop. >> I'm Michaela Hatfield, city council member and the dive spot is just over from the old Geddney factory by Ottabon and 61. That's where you can find it. So, let's go dive in and check some things out. Hi, I'm Kayen Angel, the co-owner of the Dspot Thrift Shop, and we are a modern take on dumpster diving. When you come into our space, you're going to see high quality items put at a low price so everyone can afford them. And why we do this is because we want to keep highquality items out of the landfill. So, Kaden, what inspired you and your dad, Nick, to start the Dive Spot thrift shop? >> We love thrifting and we've always loved everything about it. So, you'd catch us at local thrift stores, garage sales, everything. Estate sales, they're great. But, um, pretty much it was just the shock of what people were throwing away. Just high quality goods and things that people can't afford anymore. I can't even go into a store and justify prices nowadays. So, the big thing was is we're like, how can we take everything we love about thrifting and put it into one place? So, no smells, organized, a fun, uplifting environment with fun music, a community type of vibe, and keeping high quality items out of the landfill. What are some of the items people can expect to find? I know you touched on a few of them just a little bit, but what are some of the other maybe more specific items? >> I would definitely consider us as a quirky thrift store, and I say that because we're such a small space. So, a lot of the items we're getting in, they're items that can be used by people and we know are needed. So, we don't necessarily sell them. So, we'll give them to different foundations such as the Epilepsy Foundation and people that we know personally that are in need of items just to make sure that they're getting to the source, but we're still keeping our thrift store kind of quirky and fun cuz we're so small. So, when you come in, you'll see our clothes racked up very organized in size order. That's important. Um, and we have a men's section, kids, women's. Um, you'll see hats, vinyls, DVDs, purses, homegoods. We have plants, so we say adopt a plant. Once in a while we'll bring in plant cutings or they'll bring in plant pots and then I'll go purchase plants. But we pot them up, we name them, and we put them on the shelf and our customers love it. Tell us about your dumpster dive bin cuz that's like the first thing you see when you walk in. It's really cool. It's bright green. What's up with that? So, that's kind of how it all started was my dad and I would dumpster dive in our dumpster for his business. Just making sure there's nothing flammable or anything in there. But, we'd go in and when we started it, he was like, "We're going to start a thrift store and we're going to have a dumpster because we want people to experience that excitement like we do." Which exciting, it's dirty, but I can promise you there's no garbage in this one. But, it's just full of clothes. high quality clothes that are going to be clothing that we haven't gone through. We'll do the sniff test and then we'll put it in the bin. But but it's wonderful because people pull out some great things. Actually, the last Tuesday's highlight was a brand new North Face sweatshirt with the tags on in my size. And I was like, what the heck? So, some great things get pulled out of there. Uh but it's $3 every day and then a dollar on Tuesdays. Are there any items that have like a unique story behind them that you have in the store right now? >> Yeah. So, what we like to do with our clothing or HomeGoods, too, but normally it happens with our clothing is if someone comes in and they're like, I feel guilty getting rid of this. because I understand that when you pay a lot for a dress to go to a friend's wedding or something like that and you only wear it once cuz you're never going to wear it again, um you feel kind of guilty. And so what we do is we have our customers write on a neon story tag the fun story behind it. So maybe something they did that was fun at the wedding or something like that and then we'll tag it on to the dress. So, one of my favorite things is it was a couple it was a couple months ago about during opening, but a woman came in and her daughter loves playd dresses and she picked out the dress that I wore to my dad's wedding >> and so sweet and she's like she wears it to school all the time and she loves it and it's just a big poofy white dress. So, it's super fun. So, of course, I had the story tag saying I wore this to my dad's wedding. But, it's it's fun. It it really does drive in that community, that sense of community. That's the biggest thing for us here is because we're so small and so local um to Chesca and kind of this downtown area. People love coming in and chatting. I know so many customers by name. They know me by name. We recognize each other in public and that's what local business is supposed to be about. Tell us future plans. What are next steps? What What do you have in store? >> We are planning on being here for a while, but we're definitely growing out of our space. There's times where there's 2 to 300 people in here a day. >> Wow. >> And we're 784 square ft. So, we can only fit so many people at, you know, a certain time. So, it's definitely going to be expansion, but in the way of a larger store, not multiple. We want to be one store, familyowned and operated. You see my dad and I when you come in and that's really important. >> You talked about your dumpster bin sales. Do you have any upcoming events or other sales? >> We have late night thrifting events sometimes where bubble time tea is open with us. They're wonderful. Um they're a boba shop right by us. They'll stay open while we're open late night and so people will get a drink, they'll come on in, hang out. It's kind of like a thrift and sip with Boba. >> Oh, that's so fun. >> That is a great title. >> We're gonna have to go to the next one. >> I just thought about that. >> Yes. >> So, it's a lot of fun. And that's that's the goal is we've had different events like fill a bag of kids clothes for $25. Like a big old bag because kids clothes are so expensive. Yeah. We have a lot of cool things that go on around here, but we'll always keep it updated on Facebook. What's been the most rewarding part of opening that I've spotted? >> The overwhelming sense of support from the beginning. It's been wild. Um, we I made a post in April and I was like, "Hey, I'm a 19-year-old wanting to start a thrift store." And it blew up. So, we have about 700,000 views on Facebook and it just and it was wonderful. And I was like, "What the heck? I've never been a social media person at all. How did this happen? So, they uh the people in the community filled up our storage unit in two days. I was doing drive I was driving around in a pickup throwing things in the back and it was just a blast document um documenting the whole thing. And another big exciting thing about it is being able to work with my dad. My dad and I have always been close. He had me very young. He's a 40-year-old hype dad and I'm 20. So, we're definitely a bundle of energy is for sure. But just working with him has been super exciting. Him popping in, I get to see him. Us having that flexible schedule, the kids being able to come in. I have lots of siblings. Um the dogs once in a while, so it's a lot of fun. It's it's it's been nice. We grew up in Shakape and Chaza has been so so kind to us and we're so thankful we picked a spot here. >> That was a lot of fun. Thanks for diving in on another episode of Locally Yours. >> Yeah, it was awesome. I'm going to go check out some ATRAs now.