Helen, Greg, Ruth, Lydia, Kaori, Karen, & Steve
When these volunteers started our weekly outdoor Free Closet, you could practically predict the weather based on whether or not it was Wednesday. If it was below zero, it was Wednesday. If the wind was blowing sideways, it was Wednesday. Six months later, they have good reason to don their Hawaiian shirts!
Why start an outdoor anything in the dead of winter? Well, in this case, longtime Fishline volunteers Helen Supancheck and Karen Calhoun heard a story. It was about a boy who came into Fishline without a coat. While we often give vouchers for folks to buy clothes at Second Season (our thrift store), no clothing was available on site. This was enough to spur these women into action. They enlisted their husbands, Greg and Steve, their neighbor Kaori Williams, and even her spouse!
This operation is no easy feat: inventory is picked up almost daily from Second Season. They load and unload hundreds of pounds of clothing, haul it upstairs, and sort it in whatever available space they can find. But the service has been so well-received, they have no plans to quit anytime soon. Helen told me that they knew they had done the right thing when one day, early on, a homeless man without shoes came by. They had exactly one pair of shoes in their entire inventory and guess what? They fit him like a glove!
This summer our Free Closet gained two additional volunteers: Ruth Maupin and Lydia deRuyter. It’s operating every other Wednesday from noon-4pm and serving as many as 50 families on any given day. So many of Fishline’s services have come to fruition because of our volunteers’ ideas and energy. If you’d like to become one of our nearly 300 volunteers—with the Free Closet team or in another capacity—please be in touch with our Volunteer Manager.