History
Touchdown Thrift Shop, aptly named as a nod to the location’s previous use as a concession stand, opened for regular operations in Spring 2025 after a joint effort between the Oxy Ecossentials Club, the Office of Sustainability, and Professor of Economics Bevin Ashenmiller’s class ECON 201.
For more than twelve years, the Oxy Ecossentials Club ran donation drives and pop-up-style thrift sales each semester to align with their mission of reducing waste on campus. While the club was successful for more than a decade, the storage and labor capacity of the club became overwhelming; the volume of donated goods surpassed available storage space, and the effort of setting up and taking down the “pop up” sales was strenuous, especially after decreased club membership as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Knowing this, club leadership sought a partnership with the Office of Sustainability to expand the club’s capacity to uphold their mission.
It was decided that year-round operations accepting donations and selling donated items would allow for a better “flow” of items, reducing storage needs and setup/takedown labor. To accommodate the storage and display of donated goods, the club needed a larger, more permanent location. The Office of Sustainability identified a number of vacant spaces that could suit such needs, and after assessing the options, the Ecossentials leadership team unanimously decided that due to its central, visible, and accessible location on campus, the concessions stand was the best choice for a thrift shop. Once the new location was confirmed, the work could begin to figure out how the store would run.
During the fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters, professor of economics Bevin Ashenmiller taught a 2-unit class to engage students in the work of opening a functional thrift store. By visiting local reuse stores around the city, students gleaned best practices for pricing, accepting donations, and staffing the store. In class, students studied the circular economy, a rival to the so-called “linear economy” which “.” Thrift stores play a key role in the circular economy by selling used and pre-owned goods; Touchdown Thrift hopes to go above and beyond this concept by also finding uses for broken and unsold goods – the store aims to throw away as little as possible, instead repairing, upcycling, or recycling as manydonations as possible.
As of spring 2025, the store is staffed by volunteers in the Oxy Ecossentials Club, which has seen a spike in membership since opening the store, as well as members of the ECON 201 class. Their combined efforts allow the store to be open for 7 hours a day on weekdays and four hours over the weekend. While the groups collect data on the most popular items, hours, and prices, they will suggest changes for future iterations of the store’s operations, ensuring it can best suit the needs of students and other patrons. The final product of Ashenmiller’s class will be a proposal for the store’s longer-term operational model, built on the foundation set by the twelve-year legacy of the Oxy Ecossentials Club.
