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In photo, the Saratoga Hospital Gift Shop Steering Committee (left to right): Grace Rosse, Patricia Cross, Noreen Wade, Yolanda Paolicelli, Vicki Milstein and Anne Hunscher. Photo by Larry Goodwin.
SARATOGA SPRINGS – Customers in the Saratoga Hospital Gift Shop this weekend are bound to find cheerful women promoting 20 percent discounts, which are being offered to mark the shop’s nearly 20 years of existence.
During a monthly meeting of the Gift Shop Steering Committee on Tuesday, volunteer Yolanda Paolicelli reported that she ranks at the top of the list in hours worked over the course of 20 years, having put in 26,000 hours.
Manager Grace Rosse, who has 30 years of experience in the city’s retail market, and Vicki Milstein are the only two paid staff of about 20 people in the gift shop. The others belong to the Saratoga Hospital Volunteer Guild, which has about 250 members in total, says Director of Volunteer Services Betsy St. Pierre.
The committee ladies agreed that hospital employees “are our best customers.”
The gift shop started out in the late 1990s in cramped quarters. The steering committee members praised volunteer Patricia Cross for working “tirelessly” 10 years ago to advocate for a larger space near the main lobby, which is accessible from the hospital’s Church Street entrance.
Cross, who shares with Rosse a retail background in the city, also arranges displays on the gift shop’s racks and shelves and handles the overall design.
All proceeds from gift shop sales—as well as from sales at Treasure’s Boutique on West Avenue—are managed by the Saratoga Hospital Volunteer Guild for the support of numerous annual donations, explained the steering committee ladies.
Paolicelli pointed out that includes five $1,500 scholarships awarded to high school students throughout the Capital Region each year who can prove they are serious about “going into the medical field.”
The gift shop discounts are effective through Sunday, Sept. 24, according to Rosse. Its hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 12 to 4 p.m. on weekends.
