Mom-treprenuers Make Consigning Purposeful: WeeRuns

WeeRuns, a childrens' consignment sale in High Point, NC.

For Stephanie Allred, owner of WeeRuns, a semi-annual kids’ consignment sale in High Point, shopping anywhere besides consignment sales immediately sends her into “sticker shock.”  

“I don’t even know how to shop at retail stores anymore!” she jokes. The reason? Because for years, WeeRuns has made it possible for Stephanie and other parents and grandparents to find retail-quality kids’ items discounted at 50-90% off retail value.  

When WeeRuns first started in 1994, High Point didn’t have anything like it. Of course, thrift stores and yard sales offered some discounted items, but nothing to the degree of quality and quantity that WeeRuns offered. But another High Pointer had the idea to make a kids’ consignment sale that would help parents make and save money on top-quality items their kids needed.  

Deane Belk, the founder of WeeRuns, got the idea from her sister-in-law, who offered a boutique consignment sale where she lived in Nashville. Deane, who was at the time pregnant with her first son, decided to try launching a consignment sale in her own city.  

“I knew there was a need in High Point,” Deane recalls, as she was just starting motherhood. She brainstormed some ideas with her sister-in-law and “ran with it,” never imagining that it would become a 25-year career and household name in the Triad.  

“I was going go back to teaching after my oldest son turned six,” Deane says. “I just wanted something to keep my mind occupied and give me something to do. But it was so blessed that it sort of sidetracked me for the entirety of a second child all the way up until his graduation!”  

This “sidetrack” eventually led to the largest and longest-running kids’ consignment sale in the Triad. Today, the WeeRuns sales run twice a year, and attract over 600 consignors and 250 volunteers (volunteers get the perk of shopping the sale first) to each WeeRuns sale. The average consignor can make somewhere around $500 per sale, as they sell, shop, and save on high-quality items for their families.  

WeeRuns owner, Stephanie Allred (left) and WeeRuns founder and former owner, Deane Belk (right).
WeeRuns owner, Stephanie Allred (left) and WeeRuns founder and former owner, Deane Belk (right).

But the WeeRuns sale is much more than just a giant community yard sale. With a barcode system, a recall department, a give back program, and a host of community building opportunities – WeeRuns is a well-oiled and well-loved machine.  

A little over two years ago, when Deane decided to retire from WeeRuns, she sold the business to another mom who was a WeeRuns shopper and volunteer, Stephanie. The hand-off was the perfect fit for both ladies. They shared a strong faith and the belief that WeeRuns was simply a gift from God to steward well to bless others in the High Point community and beyond.  

Strollers lined up at WeeRuns, a High Point consignment sale.

“She handed me the business as it was,” says Stephanie, noting how easy it was to step into a role of ownership thanks to WeeRuns’ well-developed processes. “I think it's so rare to buy a business, and then for the person who's selling the business to come alongside you and walk you through every single aspect of that business from start to finish.”  

But for Deane, empowering other mothers and women to use their giftings has been her bread-and-butter for three decades. She used to lead a team of women who would brainstorm new initiatives, processes, and projects to make WeeRuns better every year.  

“WeeRuns became the WeeRuns that Stephanie got because of the ideas and the thoughts of that team – not just mine,” Deane is quick to say. “I just pulled the team together and had the responsibility for putting on the sale.”  

Some of the aspects of WeeRuns that make it so unique and successful include their Attention Recall Library and the Satisfaction Station.  

“Stephanie really dove into the recalls,” Deane says. At one annual planning session, the leadership team discussed how important it was for all moms, especially new moms, to feel confident that anything they purchased at WeeRuns was completely safe and up to standards for their child. So WeeRuns partnered with Safe Guilford, an injury prevention coalition, to safety test every car seat, high chair, stroller, and seat.  

“Anything the baby’s bottom goes in gets checked,” Stephanie says. And anything that doesn’t pass inspection is immediately pulled from the floor, so every shopper can feel completely confident in what they purchase.  

A new mom shops at WeeRuns, a consignment sale in High Point, NC.

The same goes for Satisfaction Station. Rather than testing for safety, shoppers can test out electronics, play with games, open up boxes, and more to make sure what they’re buying meets their standards.  

“We'll sit there and let you put the hundred pieces of a puzzle together if you want!” Deane teases.  

Not only did WeeRuns bring in programmatic improvements to the sale, but it also grew to encompass a purpose even greater than just helping shoppers save money. During one sale, Deane, and her good friend and another volunteer, Janice Myers, were organizing books in the warehouse before a sale.  

“I feel like it’s not as much fun as it used to be,” Deane told Janice. “I feel like a purpose is needed.”  

From that conversation, the Round-Up Campaign was born. At each sale, shoppers had the opportunity to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar to be donated to a local charity. Today, shoppers are asked if they want to donate a dollar and WeeRuns matches each donation. And over the course of 25 years, with only two sales a year, WeeRuns donated more than $50,000 back into the High Point community through charities like West End Ministries, the YWCA’s Baby Basics, and Family Services of the Piedmont. WeeRuns also offers “Consign for a Cause,” a donation service that allows participants to leave donatable items on their porches for pick up. These items are then tagged specifically to ensure all proceeds are donated to the United Way of Greater High Point. 

“For a little mama-owned business that is only open a month each year, that’s a lot,” says Deane. “It says a lot about our consignors, volunteers, and shoppers that they all give back to the community like that.”   

Owner Stephanie Allred with a team of WeeRuns volunteers.
Owner Stephanie Allred with a team of WeeRuns volunteers.
Deane organizing clothes in one of the temporary WeeRuns' warehouse in 2010.
Deane organizing clothes in one of the temporary WeeRuns' warehouse in 2010.

Not only does WeeRuns give back through matching these monetary donations, but they’ve also expanded to offer the option for all of their consignors to donate any unsold items at the end of the sale to one of WeeRuns’ philanthropic partners.  

“Families who are in need can basically go and shop those items for free at West End Ministries or Baby Basics,” Stephanie says. As a former event planner for Family Services, Stephanie knows the needs of these families first-hand, and she plans to continue to support families in our community through WeeRuns.  

And while WeeRuns has grown tremendously – both in its following and its giving – during its 28 years of operation, both Stephanie and Deane know well that it’s not without its challenges.  

“I look back on the years I ran WeeRuns, and I cannot believe for 50 sales that we didn’t miss one,” says Deane with amazement. “The responsibility of putting on the sale, finding a location, and getting it announced can be overwhelming.”  

 

Both women note that in addition to coordinating around 600 consignors plus volunteer teams, advertising the sale, and getting inventory organized – finding a location for the semi-annual sale is always challenging. Over the years, the sale space grew from needing to be around 2,500 square feet to eventually needing nearly 50,000 square feet to display all of the products. Deane recalls holding WeeRuns sales everywhere from an empty KB Toys to a Rite Aid, to a Food Lion.  

“The butcher's area in the back of a grocery store is sand, so we had to rope it all off with caution tape,” Deane laughs, remembering some of the unorthodox locations for the sale.  

Toys lined up at WeeRuns in High Point.
Stephanie Allred, owner of WeeRuns with her family.

Similarly for Stephanie, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she had to be even more creative with where to have the sale to provide the option for social distancing. There were days when Stephanie wondered if she’d be able to secure a space for the sale, but she pushed through and was able to find a space. And the reward for her continued determination went beyond a successful sale. 

"My daughter, Ava, had a program at school, and the character education lesson was on perseverance," Stephanie remembers. "And she said in front of the whole class, 'My mom shows perseverance through her work with WeeRuns because she never gives up.'" 

The moment meant more to Stephanie than a profitable sale, because it reminded her that her kids are learning from her, as a businesswoman and a person of character.  

“What my kids pick up through this little mom-owned business,” Stephanie says, “that you're going to go through trials in life and you have to persevere – it means the world to me.”  

“What my kids pick up through this little mom-owned business – that you're going to go through trials in life and you have to persevere – it means the world to me.”  

Stephanie Allred, Owner of WeeRuns

Along with lasting impact on the families of those involved with WeeRuns, Deane and Stephanie both know how much good WeeRuns does for building up a supportive community of women in High Point. 

“As a mom, you have the weight of the world on you,” Stephanie says. “WeeRuns is the place you can go to have some mom time.”  

Making WeeRuns welcoming to any and every mom was an intentional choice on Deane’s part from the very beginning.  

“In the early stages, someone told me that WeeRuns couldn’t be everything to all people," Deane remembers, "and I pondered that for a good while." But in the end, she rejected that idea and instead worked to make WeeRuns a platform for all parents. 

“We would have women working together who were absolutely at the opposite ends of the socioeconomic scale in High Point, and they developed friendships,” Deane says. Many women would find the same volunteer shifts that worked for them every year, and get to know the other women on that shift. Many formed lifelong friendships. 

“It was wonderful to see women from such different backgrounds who navigated different social circles – some who worked, some who didn't, some were married, some were not, some were affluent, some were on government assistance – form relationships,” Deane says. “It was just a great melting pot of people.”  

Business_WeeRuns_volunteers

And in this melting pot of mamas in High Point, Deane and Stephanie have seen the generational part WeeRuns plays in a family’s story.  

“Now grandmothers are coming in with the daughters for their grandbabies,” says Stephanie. “We have folks come up to tell us how important WeeRuns is to them and to share stories about how they shopped for their little girl who is now expecting her first baby.”  

For Stephanie’s part, she hopes that one day her daughter, Ava, might grow up to want to work the sale alongside her. And Deane, though she has since relocated from High Point, still holds WeeRuns as a part of her identity and family legacy. Her boys grew up learning to ride their bikes at WeeRuns locations, picking out their Christmas presents from the sale floor, and learning how to make smart business decisions because of the sale. 

“In the summers, my boys would come home from camp and help tag items for the sale,” Deane says. At one of her last summer at WeeRuns, her oldest son, Garrison was tagging items. 

“Garrison said to me, ‘Mom, you do realize you have raised two boys who are uniquely qualified to be fathers, right?’” Deane remembers him saying. “‘I’m the only 26-year-old in North Carolina who can name all the Disney Princesses and has any idea how much a stroller costs!’”

The moment struck Deane, as she thought about how her sons had learned the value of hard work, saving money, serving their community, and taking care of their own families. And while Deane had many bittersweet moments as her final chapter at WeeRuns drew to a close, she knew that WeeRuns would be in good hands and would always be a part of her family. 

A desk at WeeRuns with balloons and people standing around.
During Deane's last-ever WeeRuns shift, she was overwhelmed with community members coming to say goodbyes and thank you's.
Women stand together at WeeRuns in High Point.
Deane says that the ladies who led WeeRuns with her were the ones who deserve the credit for making the company what it is.

“Someday when I am a grandmother, I want to be invited to come back and shop with Stephanie first,” Deane says, smiling. "I want to come back, have that quiet moment, and enjoy that camaraderie among the volunteers.”  

Because these two self-proclaimed “Mom-trprenuers,” know that business ownership, like motherhood, is something that you love and celebrate for a lifetime.  

Discover our High Points, 

The HPD Team

Photography by Maria West Photography

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