We have planned Clothing Ministry Event Days at the Washingtonville Food Pantry in April 2019
Our goal is to have more EVENT days this year and to help more people. We need additional hands to reach that goal. Preparing and sorting the clothing is time consuming, and moving the bins takes effort. Please think about joining us for ONE event a year!!
The Bethlehem Clothing Ministry began with a simple premise: if our little community had a surplus of clothing that we all shared, why couldn't we go a step further and share among our neighbors in need? One of our members, Sabrina Roe, had organized clothing trades in our church for years; she would collect the bags, size them and re-distribute to other folks in church and at her workplace. The needs grew and so did the bags of clothing. Eventually, Sabrina organized the clothing into a Rummage Sale Drive as both a service and as a fundraiser to further the work of the clothing ministry-and the response was unbelievable. Over the next two years, she organized 2-3 sales per year, and she connected with local group homes, the foster family network, several food pantry organizations to promote the exchange of clothing. This led to a fundraising concert to fund the construction of a clothing collection drop-off shed on campus at Bethlehem. Soon we were sending clothing to other area churches for coat drives and clothing families who had lost homes to fire.
The Clothing Ministry Program has now become a major project within our church. Sabrina took over our former Christian Library Building and has stored the clothing in a very amazing organized system in this building, with help from Susan Krieger and Arlene Roberts. We have teams of "folding angels" who help fold clothing for inventory; others come and sort the bags we get in the Clothing collection shed. Still others empty the shed or move the bins to our various functions. We currently partner with two (soon to be three) area food pantries. We bring bins of sized clothing to the food distribution centers and the clients can get whatever they have need of. At our most recent pantry opportunity, a worker from a Newburgh ministry (Newburgh Outreach) was able to expand their offerings from our supply-another area reached! We have also sent clothing to Walter Hoving Home for the women there to use for interviews.
HOW CAN YOU HELP??
Pray for the success of this needed Ministry.
1. Donate time-we fold and sort on Sundays after service and some folks come during the week. This is a huge need to keep up with the volume.
2. Donate clothing-if you are switching out seasons of clothes and have stuff you no longer need, bag it and send it down. It helps even more if you fold it and bag it by gender and size. Please tag if you do this extra mile of work! (We also need good quality large rubbermaid tubs with tops)
3. Work at one of the events setting up, cleaning up or helping to run the day.
4. If you have clothing or bedding that you feel will be too shabby to recycle- Sabrina has found an outsource service that picks up things we can't recycle and pays us by the pound for them. The next pick up is Nov 22nd.
5 Offer to transport or man a food pantry give away date.
The Clothing Ministry Program has now become a major project within our church. Sabrina took over our former Christian Library Building and has stored the clothing in a very amazing organized system in this building, with help from Susan Krieger and Arlene Roberts. We have teams of "folding angels" who help fold clothing for inventory; others come and sort the bags we get in the Clothing collection shed. Still others empty the shed or move the bins to our various functions. We currently partner with two (soon to be three) area food pantries. We bring bins of sized clothing to the food distribution centers and the clients can get whatever they have need of. At our most recent pantry opportunity, a worker from a Newburgh ministry (Newburgh Outreach) was able to expand their offerings from our supply-another area reached! We have also sent clothing to Walter Hoving Home for the women there to use for interviews.
HOW CAN YOU HELP??
Pray for the success of this needed Ministry.
1. Donate time-we fold and sort on Sundays after service and some folks come during the week. This is a huge need to keep up with the volume.
2. Donate clothing-if you are switching out seasons of clothes and have stuff you no longer need, bag it and send it down. It helps even more if you fold it and bag it by gender and size. Please tag if you do this extra mile of work! (We also need good quality large rubbermaid tubs with tops)
3. Work at one of the events setting up, cleaning up or helping to run the day.
4. If you have clothing or bedding that you feel will be too shabby to recycle- Sabrina has found an outsource service that picks up things we can't recycle and pays us by the pound for them. The next pick up is Nov 22nd.
5 Offer to transport or man a food pantry give away date.
