by Adele R. Meyer Executive Director

One of my favorite movies is The American President, starring Michael Douglas. In one scene, during a particularly dramatic speech, he addresses gun control and adamantly states, "... and I will go door to door if I have to... and I’m gonna get the guns!" Every time I hear that a child has been injured or, even worse, died due to a faulty crib, unsafe car seat or jacket with a drawstring, I think to myself, "If I could only go store to store and get the cribs, I would!" Anything to keep from hearing that another child was injured or killed.

I realize that I can’t personally visit enough stores to create a prominent impact, but guess what―as an Industry with all of us working together, we can make a MAJOR difference! Speaking of working together... NARTS has joined forces with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), The Danny Foundation and the National SAFE KIDS Campaign (Safe Kids) in an initiative to keep hazardous, unsafe and recalled products out of resale & thrift stores.

The joint initiative kicked-off on April 14^th at a press conference in Washington, DC and will be ongoing throughout the year. CPSC consumer information offices will work with NARTS and Safe Kids hosting seminars around the country to educate resale and thrift store staff on the dangers of recalled products. As our contribution to this important initiative, NARTS introduced a program aptly named Involve, Inform, Inspire!

We want to involve you! Yes, we’re asking EACH of you to go store-to-store... well maybe just to one or two stores. Set out, armed with some information from NARTS and CPSC, and visit one of your area resale or thrift shops. We’re asking you to add links to product safety sites on your Website. We’re asking you to make this initiative known to your local media. We have designed a sample press release you can customize for your store. Each piece of media coverage could inspire another newspaper or TV station to become involved in our mission. Sending in a press release may not seem important on first thought, but consider this scenario. You are successful in getting your local media to publish an article. As a result, say just one person removed a dangerous product from the stream of commerce. Bottom line, you may have saved a life!

We want to inform as many resale & thrift shops as possible about the dangers of selling recalled and unsafe products. We’ve been diligent in keeping our members informed about product safety, now we want to reach out to the entire industry. I know that many resale and thrift shops, particularly those selling children’s merchandise, get automatic recall notices from the CPSC―but what about those who don’t? The ones who, unfortunately, are not aware of the importance of product safety. They need to be educated and who better to reach out to them than a neighboring resale shop owner or manager. Any time a child is injured as a result of a hazardous product purchased at a resale or thrift shop it makes the entire industry look bad!

Knowing that many—or even most—resale and thrift shops are conscientious about product safety isn’t enough. We need to clean up the ENTIRE industry! We need to "Get the Cribs!"

We want to inspire you to inspire others—not just today, but every day! Product safety has to become of the utmost importance to ALL resale and thrift shop owners, managers and employees in order for us to make a REAL IMPACT. I am urging each of you to take a very active role in Involve, Inform, Inspire!

Consumers deserve to have confidence that the goods
they buy are safe, no matter where they buy them.

Reprinted from NARTS monthly newsletter, Your NARTS Network—April 2004 issue.