09.24.2014

Volunteer Nathalie Transforms Wearhouse Book Shop

By Nicole Herron, Treehouse Wearhouse Manager

In the Wearhouse, we are fortunate to have an amazing community of supporters that generously donate their time and talent to help provide more than 1,600 youth in foster care with all of the essentials that they need to feel good and fit in at school every year.  Nathalie Dreher, who joined us this past December, is one member of this fantastic group of individuals.

Getting Connected

In the early 2000’s, Nathalie and her husband had hoped to directly support youth in care by becoming adoptive parents. When they found out that they were expecting twins, they put this plan on hold and looked for other ways to get involved. As the twins quickly outgrew their clothes, Nathalie decided to look for an organization that would enable her to donate the clothing to kids in foster care. The Wearhouse was a perfect fit and the family’s visit turned into an annual tradition. Ten years later when her kids moved to middle school, Nathalie decided that she was interested in expanding her involvement at Treehouse and she signed up to help in the Wearhouse over the busy holiday season. Our book section was in need of some TLC, so I asked her if she could straighten it up a bit. The rest, as they say, is history.

Transforming the Book Shop

Nathalie has managed the Wearhouse book section for almost a year now. Her phenomenal organizational skills and detail-oriented nature have transformed the section making it easy and enjoyable for clients to find age appropriate books in their specific area of interest. With thousands of books donated every year, staying on top of everything is no easy feat, and we are so lucky to have Nathalie and her team of support, including co-volunteer Terry, and the younger members of the Dreher family who organize books at home and volunteer at the Wearhouse occasionally in their free time.

This book section is particularly important to the Wearhouse because it so closely aligns with Treehouse’s 2017 graduation equity goal. As it turns out, this is exactly one of the reasons Nathalie loves her role so much:

“I enjoy working in the book section because I love books and reading has so many benefits, such as mental stimulation, stress reduction, knowledge, vocabulary expansion, the list goes on and on. Also, books go hand in hand with the Treehouse plan to ensure that foster youth will graduate high school at the same rate as their peers by 2017. As we are now embarking on the journey of adopting an older foster child, helping at Treehouse has become even more meaningful. I love volunteering at Treehouse and, if I could, I would work there every day,” Nathalie recently shared.

Nathalie’s love of books is infectious and we are so grateful for her dedication to sharing her passion with our students. Together with her co-volunteers, she is truly making a difference in the lives of youth and families experiencing foster care.

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