It's my extreme pleasure to introduce to you one of my newest friends and a proud resident of Winter Park, Florida. Her names is Katie.

Say hello to Katie

She's done volunteer work for 30 years.
It's pretty hard to believe that the charming thrift shop she's doing volunteer work at used to be a jail.

Winter Park thrift shop

That's where the thrift shop was relocated to some years back.
All proceeds go to churches and other benefit organizations
such as providing Thanksgiving meals for the homeless.

Kattie enjoys coming to work because she says it gets her out of the house and she can meet people of all stations in life.

Katie makes a sale

She is so proud of the fact that she knows the first name of every customer that comes into her shop.

She works three days a week and altogether there are 12 retired women who work there.I also had the pleasure of meeting one of Katie's friends Jackelyn who gave me some good info about a global film festival that was happening at Rollins college.

All the clothes items at the thrift shop have been donated
Katie is by the way a native Floridian and is originally from Trenton, Florida, just a stone's throw southwest of Gainesville.
When she was young she used to swim in the Swanee river

She dressed up as a bag-lady for Halloweens a few years ago
That costume consisted of a wig, a net skirt that went all the way down to the floor, and shoes of different colors on each foot. I'm sure that she was a sight for sore eyes.

Oh yeah, one very important piece of information.
It was Katie's 80th birthday yesterday and she's got the day off.
I hope it's a truly magical day for her.