It’s rather fitting that I meet Steven Henke, DAP Health’s director of brand marketing, at the Revivals Store in the corner of the Sun Center on South Palm Canyon Drive. As he reminds me, the immense space once held the operations for the Desert Sun. Where there was a newsroom packed with deadline-harried journalists, there are now racks and racks of pre-owned designer clothing. Where there were printing presses and production offices, there is now a showroom for Mode Furniture — Revivals’ own line of mid-century-modern-inspired new furniture, rugs, lamps, and art. Desert Magazine once had a corner here somewhere, but was it where the men’s suits are hanging or by the bookcases full of hardcover and paperback books? It’s difficult to remember. 

Henke spent his first five years in the Valley after moving from Minneapolis working as client strategies manager for the Desert Sun Media Group; he is a tall, stylish man. He has a fondness for the space that goes beyond past professional attachments and his pride in Revivals’ current success. He leads me toward the back of the store and indicates a doorway where a volunteer wheels out a rack of women’s clothing. 

“Back there, across the parking area, in a little office, is where the founders of DAP Health gave HIV tests under the cover of darkness. They had to wait until the offices closed at night,” he says, referring to the extreme stigma attached to the AIDS epidemic in the early years of the disease. 

As is well-known, DAP Health has come a long way since those dark and shameful days. Thanks to leaders such as the late Steve Chase, who shined a light and forced his friends, colleagues, clients, and neighbors to confront and battle the crisis, and legions of volunteers and health professionals who have grown the organization in its nearly 40 years of existence, DAP Health’s services now include primary care, housing, behavioral health, HIV and AIDS care, sexual health, dental care, employment support, and a host of other vital health services for the entire community. 

Henke notes with some irony that in the back alley where the secret DAP services were once offered, Revivals now produces one of its most successful nights of fundraising of the year. Revivals After Dark is a one-night affair when the store sells adult-themed products. “We have a line of 200 to 300 people before we open the doors at 6:00,” Henke says. “We close the doors at 7:30. In those 90 minutes, we raise between $15,000 and $17,000.”

Henke is careful when throwing around stats and numbers. Though he once worked for Target Corporation, he and his colleagues are not interested in profit for profit’s sake. “I hope people shop at Revivals with pride, understanding that our primary purpose isn’t in retail in the traditional sense — it’s fundraising to ensure their neighbors have access to the health care they need and deserve at DAP Health,” he says.

When the organization, then known as the Desert AIDS Project, first occupied legitimate offices on Vella Road, the forerunner of Revivals Stores began fundraising with a handful of donations in the corner of their offices in 1995. The move to its present Palm Springs location greatly increased the store’s ability to accept large donations and process those donations adequately so they could be put out on the floor for sale. Henke says the person who had the biggest impact on the growth of Revivals Stores was Dane Koch, a veteran retailer who’d held senior positions at Montgomery Ward and Michael’s; he took on the position of director of retail in 2014. Koch recognized early on not only that the stores’ growth and success would be greatly enhanced by the addition of a new furniture line, but also that the communities of the Valley would be best served by a network of stores tailored to their demographics and interests.

There are now four Revivals Stores locations — Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Palm Desert, and Indio. Henke offers to give me a tour so that I can see how each store meets the needs of the community. 

The Indio store at 111 and Monroe is the newest jewel in the crown. Built out during the pandemic by volunteers and professional builders, the store opened its doors a year and a half ago. The feel of the store is light, airy, and colorful, with bilingual signs scattered liberally throughout the space. Henke notes that the store is often frequented by families. “Do you remember shopping for furniture, like a dining room table, with your family when you were a kid? That’s the kind of positive experience we want families to have when they come to this store.” He says the new Mode furniture in this store is at a slightly lower price point, noting that the trendier, mid-century pieces in the Palm Springs store are not as popular with families in the East Valley. He says shoppers on the lookout for vintage items should not ignore the Indio store, though. As if on cue, we stumble on two 1940s or ’50s brass and glass end tables that Henke immediately snaps up. “I can’t believe no one has bought these,” he exclaims. He nods toward a vintage upholstered chair. “That wouldn’t last 15 minutes in the Palm Springs store.”

Henke introduces me to Rosie Escobedo and Monica Rendo, manager and assistant manager, respectively, of the Indio store. Both women grew up locally and have many years of retail experience. As in all the stores, managers like Escobedo and Rendo, as well as volunteers specializing in certain areas such as jewelry or electronics, have complete autonomy when it comes to pricing the pre-owned merchandise. (Revivals Stores’ new ad slogan is “Relove the preloved.”)

“Sometimes, I base the price on what I would pay for it,” says Escobedo. “And sometimes, we come together and discuss it. We also think about the children and how they would use the furniture. (Indio is the only one of the four stores with new children’s furniture such as bunk beds.) …  Some of our community are in trailer homes and they need furniture that fits in a smaller space. They’re not going to be interested in furniture that’s a little more overboard. Our customers like the little stuff. They’re not going to go for a big sectional.”

Escobedo says it took a while to get the word out in the community about the new store (these days, it’s packed on the weekends) and they needed to rely on word-of-mouth, but their breakthrough came with Spanish-language ads on Telemundo KUNA radio and bilingual email blasts. “The big thing we had to tell people is that we’re a store and not a church,” says Escobedo, laughing.

At the Palm Desert store — a smaller, more intimate space than Indio or Palm Springs — Henke is anxious to introduce me to Carol (who declined to give her last name). She first became interested in Revivals as a shopper and later, in 2016, signed on as a volunteer. Though she has no formal jewelry background other than a course at a community college, she gravitated to the department and has since become one of the store’s experts. Like all volunteers, she wears her total volunteer hours on her employee badge. Carol has given 9,000 hours — a modest amount when compared to that of some of the long-time volunteers. Carol displays the various necklaces that she is re-fashioning to put back out on display. Sometimes, a piece will sit out for a while, so she takes it and combines it with other bits of jewelry to make something that seems more vintage or more contemporary. Henke says some of her “statement pieces” in the Palm Springs store are sold as soon as they’re put on display. He also says that Carol’s “magic sauce” at the Palm Desert store is her knack for displaying the pieces to their best advantage. The prices for Carol’s creations defy belief. The smaller pieces go for less than $10, while the “statement pieces” might sell for only $25. Nonetheless, she says jewelry sales alone for December 2022 at the Palm Desert store were around $12,000. That’s a lot of metal.

According to Henke, the four Revivals Stores contribute more than one million dollars to DAP Health. In 2022, the stores’ profits sent $1.5 million to the health organization’s coffers. 

While the Palm Desert branch had a slightly conservative, reserved vibe with well-coiffed ladies of a certain age dominating the shoppers’ profile, the Cathedral City branch was an interesting melting pot. To be sure, there were clearly people who fit a certain local demographic, but there was also a quad of LA hipsters thumbing through the clothes racks. Henke says Cathedral City is the smallest of the four stores, but is the most productive per square foot. It is a favorite haunt of “pickers” — professional shoppers who try to guess when the delivery trucks arrive with new batches of donated items so they can have first crack at underpriced items that they can sell online or to antique stores.

David Ruble, a customer service volunteer who works the front of the store, says the store gets everyone from houseless persons who get vouchers from DAP Health for free clothing to Hollywood costume designers. He isn’t bothered by the resellers. “They don’t wipe out the store,” he says. “They’re selective. And it’s not like they can predict when the trucks come in. There’s usually plenty of opportunity for our regular customers to be here at just the right time.”

    Ruble says the store also gets a surprising number of young people, noting that while shoppers at stores like the Palm Springs location consider a vintage item to be something from the ’50s through the ’70s, younger people may find clothing from the ’90s equally exotic and vintage. “For [younger shoppers], it’s all stuff from an earlier time and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is really cool.’ So, it’s still the thrill of the find.”

At mid-afternoon at the mothership at Sun Center in Palm Springs, we are met by an anthill of shoppers and bargain hunters. It’s not mobbed, but it’s lively. Henke shrugs it off. “This weekend is the 50% off sale for selected merchandise,” he says. “[If] you want to see busy, come back Saturday around noon.”

One of the biggest differences between the Palm Springs store and its satellites (aside from the obvious size and gargantuan inventory of both preloved and new items) is the prepping area across the alley in the back. The space, perhaps half the size of the retail space, is jammed floor to ceiling with everything imaginable, from silk top hats to Desert Rose china. However, there is a precise order to the chaos. There is a caged area with nothing but electronics being readied and repaired. Another section has a closet where designer clothing with labels like Caroline Herrera and Donna Karan are carefully curated. In a corner across from some industrial sinks is a housewares section where glasses and dishes are washed, sorted, and meticulously organized. (“Don’t touch a thing here,” Henke advises. “They won’t like it.”) 

I am reminded of my first visit to Revivals 10 years ago. I didn’t care for it. It was musty and mildewy. It reminded me of old socks. I left after 10 minutes.

It’s a completely new experience now. Everything is spotlessly clean. The store smells as fresh as any department store — maybe better than a few. Henke says the volunteers in this sorting room go through every single donation and anything dirty, stained, or mildewy is tossed. The volunteers might not be able to make things new again, but they can make it nice enough to sit on your kitchen counter.

In the art section, we meet Brad, who is using a magnifying glass to examine the signature on the corner of a small oil painting. He is the son of an auctioneer and studied art history in college; he has lent his interest in art and passion for research to Revivals’ art resale. “We probably receive 40 to 50 pieces of art a day here,” he says. “That includes prints, oil paintings, picture frames, everything. No Picassos yet, but we’ve gotten some fairly significant pieces of art.” Like Carol, the Palm Desert jeweler, Brad prices pieces low and counts on volume. Though unsure of the exact number, he estimates that art accounted for “$50,000 to $60,000 last year.”

Brad tries to research as much as time will allow, but with the volume of art that piles up in his section, he estimates he spends an average of half an hour on unknown pieces. He is currently researching a small desert landscape by an artist named Franklin Bennett. He’s not sure yet, but it could be worth a few hundred dollars. “I want to be fair to customers because I know their dollar is very important,” he says. But, he’s equally careful not to mark a piece so low that someone grabs it for resale. “I’m not here so you can profit.”

Brad puts in an ungodly number of hours because he believes in philanthropy and the organization’s mission. “I’m here to make money for the DAP.”

At the end of the day, the success of Revivals is not simply the bargains or the little treasures. “Revivals succeeds because of more than 180 individuals who give the gift of their time and talent to raise funds for DAP Health,” says Koch. “Our stores thrive because we are staffed by volunteers.”