The Woman Behind Charity Initiative, Thrift for Good – Jennifer Sault

How Jen’s passion for sustainability and humankind came together to create an initiative that now raises funds for children around the world

March is International Women’s Month and what better time to celebrate the women making serious waves in the UAE. Jennifer Sault, along with her incredible, strong female team, are just some of these women. Jennifer, Founder of Thrift for Good, a local charity initiative, combined her love for humanity, sustainability and fashion to create a charity that rehomes preloved items in order to reduce waste, encourage sustainability and use the profits made from selling these clothing items to help children around the world through charities including well-known, Gulf For Good.

Thrift for Good was founded years ago without a name and rather informally. Jennifer used to work with Gulf for Good, a local non-profit where people can raise funds for children’s charity projects through life-changing adventure challenges.  In this organization, many people wanted to donate their clothes and their time to volunteer, so Jennifer and a community of supporters began holding flea market sales to raise extra funds. This initiative grew week by week during the pandemic and when Thrift for Good went online, it opened up the concept to an even wider community of volunteers and buyers. From there, it kept growing and today they have two stores – one in the Golden Mile Galleria Building 8 on the Palm Jumeirah and one at Times Square Center off of Sheik Zayed Road, as well as a growing online store, presence in various weekend markets, sustainable workshops and more!

Thrift for Good is almost a completely female- initiative – supported by a selection of strong female staff, volunteers and even donors and customers. “Being a female organization has really strengthened our sense of community,” said Jennifer Sault. ‘Our team of women are led with vision, kindness and care for the planet and we have found that our stores have in a way become the heart of the communities that they are in, with the atmospheres always buzzing with new ideas, friendships, and a combined desire to really make a difference in this world.” Jennifer continues, “To quote a former Gulf for Good colleague, “team work is what makes the dream work” and we find that this phrase truly shines through in every single thing that we do as a team at Thrift For Good.”

A charity thrift shop is a fairly new concept in Dubai and Thrift for Good’s team had  to pave the way with this concept. One of the biggest challenges that they had to face was on how to process end of life materials so that there is zero waste. Thrift For Good is now in partnership with Kiswa who sends such materials to Turkey in order to be recycled into furniture, really helping the team achieve their goal of zero waste.

For more information, follow Thrift For Good on its Instagram page @thriftforgood or to indulge in a little charitable shopping, visit https://thriftforgood.org