Mobile Clothes Closet: Canton, GA

Mobile Clothes Closet

What It Is:

A partnership between BigHouse and a local church or organization serving foster families to provide a one-day shopping event for foster families in their area.

For our trip to Canton, we worked with First Baptist Church Canton's new foster care ministry, PURE, to arrange the location of the event. Through PURE we got in touch with the Cherokee Co. Foster and Adoptive Parent Association and Division of Family and Children Services in order to get the word out to foster families in the area. The families registered online via BigHouse.

What Our Partners Did:

We were able to set up the clothes shopping area in their church library, and use the hallway and a few Sunday School rooms for other items.They already had clothing racks for us to use. They bought new socks, underwear, and pajamas for all the kids who were registered. They had a team of six adults who helped with the event from set-up to break-down. The church also provided food and drinks for the volunteers. We spent the night with a host family nearby so we didn't have to spend money on hotel rooms.

What BigHouse Did:

In Opelika we collected new and gently used children's and teen's clothing items, sorted them by size, packed them in bins, and loaded all of it into a truck, loaned to us by H & W Motor Co. We recruited a team of four volunteers, along with our two staff members and their families (total of 8 adults and 1 very helpful preschooler). We coordinated the registration for the families to get their kids' names, ages, and clothing sizes. We had 24 families register, and a total of 52 kids shopped.

                                                                                     

Set Up:

10 six foot, bi-level clothing racks on wheels. 10 long tables, one round table - all provided by the church. (We are having our own racks built so we can go to places that don't have racks.) It took about 4 hours to set up, including sorting and hanging donations we received once we got to Canton (everything we brought from Opelika was already on hangers and sorted by size).

Shopping:

The families selected a 2-hour block of time to shop (9-11am, 11am-1pm, 1-3pm). Some families brought the kids with them; some made arrangements for childcare. On average, the families took about 30 minutes to shop. Each child was allotted 12 items (5 outfits plus 2 pairs of shoes) from the clothes closet, plus a new duffle bag with extra goodies: new socks/underwear/pajamas, book/stuffed animal/small toy.

Relationship Building:

One goal of the Mobile Clothes Closet is to provide an opportunity for the local organization to meet the foster families in person. We believe that once you put a face with foster care, people are much more inclined to get involved. We got to talk to the families about their experience with foster parenting. We talked with the kids over cookies and juice and found out what things they really wanted (for one little guy - a superhero toy; for a three-year old girl - a pink jacket; for a teen boy - new jeans and Polo brand shirts. Want to know how awesome our God of the fatherless is? We had those exact items for them to choose from.)

Packing It Up:

We put all the leftover items back in our bins, loaded up the truck, put the church back in order, and pulled out of the parking lot at 3:30 (half an hour after the event ended). Wow! The whole process was so smooth, we'd love to go back to First Baptist Church Canton again. We loved working with PURE and Cherokee Co. Foster and Adoptive Parent Association.

We Want to Come to You!

Email us at bighouse@ourbighouse.org about hosting the Mobile Clothes Closet for foster families in your area. See more pictures from our trip on our BigHouse Foundation facebook page.