Community Kids Clothing Closet is Aug. 16-17

By Esther Noe 

 

With more clothes donated than ever before, the third annual Community Kids Clothing Closet will take place Friday, Aug. 16, from 2-6 p.m. and Saturday, August 17, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Hill City Center. Community members are invited to attend this free event and “shop” the expansive variety of clothing items available. 

“We really want the feel of it to be a big community hand-me-down event,” said Natalie Cutler, interim ministry coordinator for Love INC of Hill City-Keystone. “It’s just community members helping community members sponsored by Love INC and Little White Church.” 

This year clothing donations were accepted from April 1 to Aug. 1 and stored at a storage unit outside of town.

“At the storage unit we have had volunteers working all summer long just coming in when they’re able, and they’re sorting the clothes into sizes,” said Cutler. “That way Friday morning we can go empty the storage unit and bring them to the center and quickly put the right box at the right size table.” 

There are a lot of “really nice, hardly-used items for boys and girls,” said Cutler. This includes sweatshirts, T-shirts, dress clothes, jeans, rompers, shoes, winter coats and everything else families might want to start school. 

“It’s a great way to interact with your neighbors and have fun shopping together and pad your back-to-school budget,” said Cutler. 

Since so many clothes were donated this year, Cutler said they expanded their advertising from Hill City and Keystone into Custer. 

“Our preference is for them to get into the hands of other people in our area as opposed to just having to bring them to Rapid,” said Cutler. 

Last year Love INC volunteers handed out 177 bags of clothes. These ended up in the homes of 71 different families with 154 children ages newborn to high school. 

Already this year 20 volunteers have invested in the clothing closet and Cutler expects volunteer numbers to be up to 40 by the end of the event. 

“The other cool thing is that it does give leadership skills to youth because we have a lot of youth that are taking charge of different parts of it,” said Cutler. 

Along with the community, Love INC works with other agencies that might need clothes. Representatives from the Hill City High School and elementary school will  get clothes to have on hand throughout the school year, and a Rapid City high school representative is coming to shop for the school’s thrift store as well. 

Love INC volunteers also contact other agencies like the crisis pregnancy center and the women’s shelter in Custer to ask about specific clothing needs. These items are then boxed up and delivered. 

Anything left over is brought to a nonprofit organization in Rapid City since resources to store clothes year-round are not available. 

“We get such great donations every year too so we just kind of start over fresh every year, and try to get our leftover stuff into the best hands,” said Cutler. 

Although this event and the clothes are completely free, there will be a jar for monetary donations at the door. These funds will help cover the costs incurred from renting the storage unit. 

“Our mission is to mobilize churches to transform lives and communities in the name of Christ, and this is a way for, in this case, Little White Church, to partner with Love INC and just show Christ’s love to the community,” said Cutler. 

For more information, call 605-574-1023.