Mary Gifford ’26
Social Science
Business and Innovation
Between classes, intramural sports, internship interviews, formal events such as Senior Ring Weekend, and changeable New England weather, Providence College students wear many outfits. Mary Gifford ’26 founded Friartown’s Closet to help classmates find the clothes they need at affordable prices while reducing clothing waste.
The sophomore social science major from Wenham, Massachusetts, worked with Kelly Ramirez https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UgIj8Q07A0 , director of PC’s Donald Ryan Incubator for Entrepreneurship in the Arts and Sciences, to develop a plan for an on-campus consignment shop to sell donated, gently-used clothing. She was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Grant in 2023 through PC’s Center for Engaged Learning to research and develop a business model for Friartown’s Closet, which will open on campus in February 2024, managed and staffed by student workers.
“Mary embodies key characteristics of a successful entrepreneur,” Ramirez said. “She is creative, passionate, hardworking, and coachable.”
During her summer of research, Mary shadowed the manager in a consignment store near her home, studied models of campus consignment shops at other colleges and universities, and conducted telephone interviews with their leadership teams. She was excited to learn that many were so successful that the profits they generated were able to fund other sustainable community initiatives.
To establish her store, Mary was awarded a $9,000 grant from the Providentia Endowed Fund, which was established to celebrate 50 Years of Women at PC. She used the funds to furnish the shop in the Feinstein Academic Center.
Mary’s major in social science combines studies in anthropology, economics, history, linguistics, political sciences, psychology, and sociology. She also minors in business and innovation https://academics.providence.edu/business-innovation/. Because of college credits she earned in high school, she will graduate in 2025, a year early. She plans to spend her fourth year at PC studying for a master’s degree in business analytics before pursuing a career that connects her interests in business and fashion.
Encouraged by one of her Development of Western Civilization professors, Rev. John Vidmar, O.P., associate professor of history, Mary became interested in learning more about Catholicism. In the spring of 2023, she became Roman Catholic through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults program facilitated by the chaplains and student leaders of Campus Ministry.
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