Marriott UMUC's initiative to collect funds for Children’s Miracle Network

Armed with $5 bills, the shoppers lined up waiting for the doors to open. Sound like some kind of bizarre sale? This was no sale, it was the scene at the opening of the temporary thrift store at Marriott’s University of Maryland University College Inn and Conference Center. Local community members in need were invited to stuff as many clothes as they could into shopping bags for $5 a bag. All proceeds went to the Children’s Miracle Network (CMN).

The Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, is the local CMN hospital. CMN hospitals treat 98 percent of all children needing heart or lung transplants and 88 percent of all children with cancer. These hospitals devote 60 percent of their services to children under age six and 25 percent to newborns, providing $2.5 billion in uncompensated care each year. As a corporation, Marriott has contributed more than $66 million to CMN.

Hotel associates, along with their friends and family members, teamed up to collect gently used clothing for adults and children who need a helping hand. Lea Callahan of ZIPS dry cleaners in College Park, Maryland, donated over 100 pieces of clothing to help out the cause. The bags used that day, several hundred of them, were purchased from CMN, and the funds for these were provided by IESI/Pinnacle Waste, a local vendor of the Inn and Conference Center.

“Our spirit committee, made up of our associates at the Inn and Conference Center, spent hours sorting clothing and organizing our temporary thrift store,” says Michael McCarthy, general manager of the Marriott UMUC Inn and Conference Center. “We filled up more than a dozen of our industrial laundry bins with donated clothes. We weren’t sure what to expect since this was our first endeavor at something like this, but it was gratifying to see all those full bags in people’s hands as they walked out.”

Associates advertised the one-day thrift store event both in English and Spanish at local churches, grocery stores, and unemployment centers, throughout Hyattsville and the local Prince George’s County community.

“Most all the clothes were sold,” said Patty Campbell, executive assistant at the Marriott UMUC Inn and Conference Center and project coordinator of this event. “Those that were left we donated to the Family Emergency Shelter in Hyattsville, Maryland.”