Side Of The Table: Community Clothes Closet

So a lot of you know my sister-in-law, Carla Moody. I swear this gal has more energy than 12 two year olds put together. Every time I see her she has some big project she is working on. For years, she has been telling me about this "Giving Garage" that she has going and I thought it was real sweet and all. It started out with some donated clothing and baby goods in her garage that she was basically the distribution center for folks in need. So I pictured a few RubberMaid totes and maybe a pac-n-play or two out there. Well last year, I went and checked it out. Holy shit! Her garage was lined all the way around three shelves high with donations sorted beautifully according to gender and size. Then tons of toys and baby supplies to boot. I started to really think about the massive amount of work this was to orchestrate the goods coming in and goods going out. She had an answer to every question. She had a major support system in place through her church.

For example:

* a ladies group who repairs high end pieces (prom dresses, suits etc) that are in need of slight repair before handing back out.

* a no waste policy where tattered jeans get sent to specific countries where they are in high need and same for beat up tennis shoes

* tattered baby clothes are cut into rags and sold to construction crews

* local boy scout troops build shoe racks

* younger children are helping to make homemade laundry detergent and bottle it

* small groups will pack snacks for low income students to hold them over for the weekend

What more could she possibly do, right? Expand. So she did. She combined forces with another woman, JoAnna Johnson, and established the Community Clothes Closet out of a 3,000 sqft warehouse in Justin, Texas. It's a basic metal building that's not air-conditioned but it meets their needs. It's a starting point for a much larger (yup!) vision that Carla has. They accept donations on specific days so their volunteers can sort it and hang it and allow their customers to choose from it. Everything is free. They make rent by having rummage sales throughout the year and private donations. She has an on-call system for emergencies like home fires in their area. It's amazing. Carla wrote, " I just love how everything is exactly what we need. I could write for pages how we needed something or wanted something... and got it. Like hangers, and shoe racks. We asked... and now have abundance." Ain't that the truth?