On an ordinary day, the clients of CS Hudson, a company that builds pop-up stores, are clothing retailers, restaurants, and other brands. Yesterday, the clients were homeless children as young as 2. At a pop-up toy store that the company created in a vacant space at Tanger Outlets on Long Island in New York, children from a nearby homeless shelter came to pick out free gifts.
The team used a design process similar to what it uses in typical projects. “It’s no different than what we’re doing for retailers today,” says Scaretta. “I think that was really an important part of what we wanted to do. We wanted the store to be as if we were building it for any client–we wanted it to have all the bells and whistles, all the fixings. We didn’t want to throw some paint on the wall and put some toys on the shelves, we wanted every detail thought out for them to have an amazing experience.”
While most companies write checks for charity, the company wanted to use its own expertise. It’s a little like Sweetgreen’s work to help a liquor store in Los Angeles transform into a healthy food market, or Toyota’s work to help a food bank become more efficient–albeit smaller and very temporary. The pop-up lasted one day. But through a new series of pop-ups called Pop Up For Good, the company plans to keep going. Last week, it opened a pop-up coat drive for a nonprofit in New York City, and another opened on Tuesday.
“We want to work locally and see the impact of what we’re doing,” Scaretta says.