 The mission of Address for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing the professional attire and a network of support needed to help women thrive in work and in life. Tom talked with Executive Director Kimberly Allen about what the program can offer. Kim, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Address for Success has been around for a while, but there may be a lot of people out there who don't know what it's all about. Can you just briefly explain what your organization does? Absolutely. So Address for Success Maine is an affiliate of the International Address for Success Organization, and what we do is we provide professional attire for women who are looking to get back into the workplace, and we also provide career services and then job retention training and support. So I've been to your office. It doesn't really look like your typical nonprofit. It looks more like a clothing store. Yes. When a woman feels like she needs a little help, she doesn't have the revenue to get Address for a job interview or whatever. What's the first step? What can she expect when she contacts you? Sure. Well, what we do is we work with different agencies. So every woman who comes to us is referred from a different agency. So they have to be in some kind of work readiness program already or affiliated with town or churches, and we'll work with them to create that connection. And then what she can do, she can call, make an appointment, say, you know, I have an interview lined up. I really need some help with the proper clothes, and so then she can come in and we pair her up with a personal shopper. And so that volunteer actually is there to help her create the best outfit for her and for what she's looking to do. Okay, so now she gets the dress or whatever, and she starts going out on job interviews and that sort of thing. Do you provide any assistance with that kind of how to approach employers? We do. So we can provide career help. So we can do a double check at her resume, help her do a little mock interview and just the overall presentation. And we want people to stay connected to us. So let's say she's going out on a couple of interviews, not having success. Call us up, come back in, and let's see what we can do to help. Now, the personal shopper, does she get involved with the person all along? Yes, yes. So what we are aiming for, and this is something new that we're doing, is adding in this huge customer service piece where we really follow the women through their journey. And so we're making full up phone calls and, you know, so the same personal shopper follows that same client through until they get a job. Now, you talked, I think, in the beginning about retention. So once a woman gets a job, how long do you keep with her? As long as she wants to be with us. So what is really exciting is when she gets a job, she comes back for a week's worth of clothes. That's awesome. So we have a little party, do a lot of shopping, and then we have a professional women's group that meets once a month. And that's about job retention, about professional development. And they can stay in that professional group as long as they want. So even though, I mean, the people that come to you, they just need to be referred from some agency. Correct. Correct. You give a lot of clothing out there. We do. So where do you get that from? All from private citizens and corporations. So a lot, a lot of our clothes come right from here in the Portland area. Wow. Are they mostly new, used as a mix? They're a mix. They're used clothes. And you know, there's a lot of people who shop and never wear clothes. So they come to us. Yeah. That's hard to imagine. But when you get donations of clothing, do you screen them? How do you receive them? We do. When we receive donations, we sort them for our boutique. So are they interview appropriate? Are they up to date? If they're not, if they're a little bit more casual than what we would like, or they're a little outdated, we'll put them in our sale. And that helps us to raise funds. And if they're really outdated and worn, we'll give them to charity. Now you've been with Dress Success for about a year. Yes. In that time, about how many people have you served? Almost 300 women. Wow. Yes. So you pretty much have a woman coming in every day for services. Yes. Our aim is 50 women a month. Wow. Right. Now do you need volunteers to be what, the personal shoppers? We do. We need volunteers for personal shoppers. Many people who want to come in and manage clothes, because we have a very small space, so we're constantly moving clothing around. And we also look for people that want to volunteer just to help get the word out. Wow. Right. So you really, and how many staff do you have now? Me. So you really are volunteer intensive? Yes. We are. How many volunteers do you have right now? We probably have close to 20 volunteers right now. Wow. Yes. So they do all of that. That's a lot of work with 300 women a year. They do. And our goal for 2012 is 500 women. Wow. So you probably have another goal for more volunteers? Yes. We do. That's incredible. So I guess, you know, if people are listening and they're watching this, then they want to know how to donate clothes, how to become a volunteer, or even how to start to get services, even though you'd probably direct them to another agency. Where would they contact? Where would they get more information? They can go to our website, which is dress4success.org slash main. They can email at main at dress4success.org or they can call us on our phone, which is 780-1686. Great. Yeah. Well, thank you for providing such a great community service. Absolutely. Thanks for having me here.