WabiSabi Style Thrift Store Opens in Escalante

	The Skyhoopi thrift store, modeled after WabiSabi, had it's grand opening on Saturday, July 26th in conjunction with Escalante's Pioneer Day celebration. Dana Waggoner and Melanie Boone-Reznick were looking for information on starting a thrift store to help support the community and the arts in Escalante. They found out about WabiSabi through the Utah Arts Council. Melanie and Dana spent a day in Moab meeting with everyone they could who was involved with WabiSabi, past and present. WabiSabi helped with ideas for setting up the store, setting up partners, pricing, forms, managing money, and even a few hangers. Melanie put it this way, "Thanks so much for inspiring us to get the store up and running." Everyone is wondering where the name "Skyhoopi" came from. Apparently, "Escalante" was hard to pronounce for outsiders, so some of the old-timers would tell people they lived in "Skyhoopi". Welcome to the club of mysteriously named thrift stores! The store is right on Main Street, has a manager, 4 employees, and 4 funded partners. The store is a project of the non-profit Envision Escalante.
Melanie, Brenda the store manager, and Dana