Feb 3, 2008

A Store Where Profit Comes Not in DollarsBy Joseph P. FriedNYTimes.com

At a small high-end children’s clothing and toy store on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, shirts for infants go for as much as $40 and sweaters for toddlers to first graders cost $40 to $70. But many parents in the area are well off and accustomed to paying those prices, according to the store’s operator, Marjorie Stern.

That gives her high hopes that this seven-month-old shop will thrive, though not for her profit. The store, A Time for Children, on Amsterdam Avenue near 84th Street, is owned by a family foundation that Ms. Stern and her husband, Michael Stern, established two decades ago to help disadvantaged children.

She opened the store, she said, as an enhanced way for their foundation to support the Children’s Aid Society in New York City. With the store, she said, the couple’s foundation, Big Wood, provides not only money for Children’s Aid, but also a job-training site for its youth employment program.

All of the store’s after-tax revenue goes to Children’s Aid, and all of its employees, except for two managers and a training assistant, are 16- to 20-year-olds referred for part-time work by the agency. They generally work four-month stints of 12 to 15 hours a week, earning $8 an hour, while attending high school in most cases, or college in a few.

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