Clothes4Souls
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Rewarding Experiences
Donors Explain How Clothes4Souls Makes Giving Easy
By Jacqueline Micucci
From Footwear News Special Publication
RENEE MORRELL wanted to get more involved with her community. The store manager of Annie Sez in East Northport, N.Y., was watching an episode of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” when she saw an organization that looked like it would be a good fi t: Soles4Souls. It wasn’t until she called the charity herself that she discovered that Big M Inc, the parent company of Annie Sez, was already working with the organization. But she learned the charity had just launched another branch: Clothes4Souls. “I thought, ‘Terrific!,’” Morrell said. “We’re a clothing store, so this is an even better fit.”
Throughout the month of April, customers at the East Northport branch of Annie Sez were invited to bring in a pair of gently worn jeans or a coat in exchange for 10-percent off their purchases. “I had one customer who brought in 10 pairs of jeans and didn’t buy anything,” Morrell said. “A lot of our customers thought it was a great idea.” In addition, the high
school students who work at Morrell’s store also got behind the drive. “They distributed fl yers around their schools and posted the information on their Facebook pages,” she said. “They did a great job of getting the word out.”
By the end of the month, the store had collected 55 pairs of jeans and 45 coats. Though Morrell said she would’ve loved to have collected more, she was very pleased with her involvement and with the charity’s efficiency. “Clothes4Souls was great to work with,” she said. “I can be a pain with all my questions, but they were truly amazing. They are great organizers and it’s a great cause.”
ZACHARY KNAUS had a similar and equally rewarding experience working with Clothes4Souls. Knaus is a business customer service rep for AT&T in Evansville, Ind., and a member of the Pioneers, a volunteer organization made up of U.S. and Canadian telecommunications workers. As such, he’s always looking for a good charity with which his local chapter can get involved.
“I saw that a call center in another part of Indiana had done a shoe drive and thought that was a great idea,” he explained. “My supervisor and I contacted them and they directed us to the Soles4Souls website. I saw that they also had a group collecting clothing and I thought we could collect even more items if we did a clothing drive.”
The Haiti and Chile earthquakes were still in the headlines, so Knaus wanted to focus the drive around helping those regions. He put up fliers, sent company-wide e-mails and even listed the clothing drive on CraigsList.org and Yahoo’s Freecycle. Beyond the approximately 1,000 employees working in his call center, Knaus also convinced people in the community to donate coats and jeans to the cause.
“The drive was held between March 1 to 15, and we ended up with 974 pounds of clothing,” Knaus said. “Between the shoes we received and the clothes, it was a total of 1,700 items.” Some of the donated items were even brand new, he noted. Working with Clothes4Souls was both a rewarding and pleasant experience, Knaus said. “The organization was very prompt at getting back to me when I had questions,” he noted. Knaus decided to drive the
product to Nashville himself along with a friend and her 4-year-old daughter. “They made her feel like she was part of it all,” he recalled. “The staff made her feel special, and that’s something she’ll remember.”
It’s also something he’ll never forget. “I’m a big fan of helping out,” said Knaus. “Even if I’m no longer working for AT&T in the future, I would still work with Clothes4Souls. They left that deep of an impression on me.”
