At Housing Works Bookstore, volunteering hard to put a price tag on

by | Dec 10, 2017 | Community | 82 comments

With a schedule full of readings, launches and events, SoHo’s Housing Works Bookstore and Café at 128 Crosby St. has been an integral part of New York’s literary scene since 1996.

For many New York book lovers, a weekly volunteer shift on the sales floor, at the café, or working in the store’s online bookselling operation in the building’s basement provides a sense of connection and community. The shop’s hardwood floors, spiral staircases and faint musty smell give it an air of authenticity that its SoHo retail neighbors can only dream of. Some of those brands allude to social responsibility to sell their product, but Housing Works does it the other way around. The nonprofit, an offshoot of pioneering HIV/AIDS activist group ACT UP, operates its stores to fund housing, treatment, and harm-reduction services for marginalized populations facing HIV/AIDS and homelessness.

In order to maximize the amount of money that is raised, the bookstore’s inventory is donated and most of the labor is unpaid volunteers. Volunteer Coordinator Ida Kutechko said that the bookstore employs 25 paid staff members, and its over 300 volunteers put in over 2,000 hours a month.

“I just like being here, I feel like I’m doing something good,” said Kristi Kelly, 57, one of the café’s newest volunteers. She recently moved back to the city from Pittsburgh to care for her parents while looking for a fresh start after a divorce. She found a weekly shift at the café fits her schedule.

“It beats sitting on a computer or watching your 84- and 85-year-old parents watch Dr. Phil,” she said.

At the shop’s front register, Maria Moxon, 51, rang up customers’ finds before asking if they’d like to donate their change in her pleasant Yorkshire accent.

Moxon began volunteering in May of 2016, after relocating from San Francisco for her husband’s job. “I wasn’t working and this city is the hardest place to get to know people,” she said. “Sometimes it feels even harder because you’re surrounded by people. I live in this big apartment building and I hardly see anyone.”

Her shift-mate Lauren Oster, 39, a writer, priced a pile of books beside her. In 2014, she lost her job as an editor. A weekly shift “made the transition from an office job to alone time much easier,” she said.

While shoppers may not even realize they’re supporting a nonprofit, the mission is never far away. Upstairs from the bookstore is Housing Works’ Manhattan Harm Reduction Center. Its clients often kill time in the cafe, sipping drinks or reading books.

In some ways, this is by design. The bookstore was intended to be a “complete vindication from those naysayers who fear that service programs like those operated by Housing Works would have a negative impact on the presence of the neighborhood,” according to a Housing Works newsletter cited in a history of the organization by Gavin Browning.

Volunteers say they benefit as well.

“I’m normally a person who gets mad at someone wearing a backpack on the subway,” Oster joked. But a few years of volunteering imparted “radical acceptance.”

“It can be tricky—people in the store are not always polite, friendly, and well-behaved,” she said. “But part of what we do is be accepting of everyone.”

Volunteers need not be entirely altruistic, either. They get 50 percent off their purchases. And there’s plenty to choose from across the store’s two floors.

Biographies, histories, science, and poetry hold court on the second floor, a balcony lined with wooden shelves and small tables overlooking the café. Hot-sellers like fiction, mysteries, art and cookbooks line the ground floor.

As the store’s by-donation inventory is not catalogued, Oster compared the shopping experience to “literary off-roading.”

“Then you stumble across something you’ve never heard of and get the feeling that you need it right now,” she said.

Though not required, bibliophilia is common among volunteers. “I didn’t care too much about the mission, I just saw books!” said Moxon, recalling her feelings as a new volunteer.

For Maggie Ruggiero, a 10-year volunteer, the store’s stock and trade represents something more.

“It restores my faith in humankind, these endless mountains of books,” she said. “They’re heavy. And yet people make an effort to bring them here selflessly.”

Ola Nilsson, a café volunteer spending a year in the city with his diplomat husband, spoke of the joy he gets seeing piles of donated books in the basement.

“And then you think that there’s stories with every book and people are paying them forward,” he said. “It’s an organism that lives and gives.”

82 Comments

  8. JasonBer
    JasonBer on March 8, 2021 at 5:59 am

    buy prescription drugs online without india pharmacy

    Reply
  10. MichaelNex
    MichaelNex on March 10, 2021 at 8:45 am

    overseas pharmacies shipping to usa: https://genericwdp.com/ overseas pharmacies shipping to usa

    Reply
  13. JasonTop
    JasonTop on March 11, 2021 at 3:05 pm

    best place to buy viagra online buying viagra online
    where can i buy viagra over the counter

    Reply
  15. JeffreyLorry
    JeffreyLorry on March 12, 2021 at 8:17 am

    viagra without a doctor prescription usa viagra price
    best over the counter viagra

    Reply
  18. JeffreyLorry
    JeffreyLorry on March 13, 2021 at 6:57 am

    viagra amazon viagra cost
    order viagra online

    Reply
  21. JeffreyLorry
    JeffreyLorry on March 15, 2021 at 3:21 am

    best over the counter viagra viagra from india
    when will viagra be generic

    Reply
  23. StanleyCer
    StanleyCer on March 16, 2021 at 10:27 am

    diflucan pill over the counter diflucan oral

    Reply
  30. HowardTum
    HowardTum on March 19, 2021 at 5:20 am

    free local singles
    [url=”http://stfreeonlinedating.com/?”]dating [/url]

    Reply
  35. ElmerJAF
    ElmerJAF on March 22, 2021 at 7:13 am

    buy ed pills from canada buy ed pills
    cheap ed pills

    Reply
  36. Terryles
    Terryles on March 22, 2021 at 6:50 pm

    buy ed pills buy ed pills
    ed pills without a doctor prescription

    Reply
  38. oxvow
    oxvow on March 23, 2021 at 8:20 am

    exceptional post, i like it

    Reply
  39. oxvow
    oxvow on March 23, 2021 at 2:07 pm

    fabulous post, i like it

    Reply
  40. ElmerJAF
    ElmerJAF on March 23, 2021 at 3:53 pm

    cheap ed pills in mexico causes of ed
    buy ed drugs

    Reply
  50. frolep rotrem
    frolep rotrem on March 28, 2021 at 10:22 pm

    Does your blog have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to shoot you an email. I’ve got some suggestions for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great website and I look forward to seeing it grow over time.

    Reply
  58. second chance payday loans
    second chance payday loans on April 2, 2021 at 4:07 pm

    Simρly desire to sayy your aeticle is as astonishing.

    The clarity in your poѕt is just spectacular and i could aѕsume you ɑre an expert on thіs
    suƅject. Well with yoᥙr permission alloѡ me to grab your feed tо
    keep up to date with forthcоming рost. Thanks a million ɑnd please keeр
    up the gratifying worҝ.

    Feel free to surf too my web blog :: second chance payday loans

    Reply
  60. BillyUsamb
    BillyUsamb on April 3, 2021 at 1:10 am

    cleocin price: omnicef online
    order cephalexin online

    Reply
  68. Ekonomia Podaż
    Ekonomia Podaż on April 7, 2021 at 6:16 am

    Różnica miedzy niemozliwym a mozliwym lezy w ludzkiej wiarze i determinacji. Tommy Lasorda & ZeroCool… M$ Thx

    Reply
  69. EKONOM.XMC.PL
    EKONOM.XMC.PL on April 7, 2021 at 7:21 am

    Jaki jest sens zycia? To zalezy od tego, jakie zycie masz na mysli. – Colleen Hoover

    Reply
  72. free local personal ads
    free local personal ads on April 7, 2021 at 2:07 pm

    Hello, і think that i saw ʏou visited mү ᴡeblog tһսs i came to “return the favor”.I am trying to
    find things to enhance my website!I suppose itѕ ok to
    use a few of your ideas!!

    Here is mmy homepage free local personal ads

    Reply
  76. Ekonomia Tematy
    Ekonomia Tematy on April 9, 2021 at 5:58 pm

    Prawdziwy przyjaciel to nie ten, kto osusza lzy twoje, Niczm jak Drapiezne lwy Tolstoje, ale ten, kto nie pozwala ci ich wylewac, innym zabrania sie z Ciebie wysmiewac E. F. Teixeira & Zeroo Cool..

    Reply
  81. Jamesped
    Jamesped on April 11, 2021 at 11:16 am

    best place to buy generic viagra online no prescription viagra viagra online no prescription

    Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *