Our Impact
Working Wardrobe is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to combating clothing insecurity in the Greater High Point community. It is our mission to provide clothing to women and children in an effort to help facilitate and enrich their lives. Working Wardrobe is also committed to providing educational opportunities that will help participants develop the tools necessary to succeed in the work environment.
Pop-Up Clothing Donation Shops
The primary charitable efforts of Working Wardrobe focus on combating clothing insecurity by providing attire to women in need. To accomplish this goal, we collect clothing from both individual and corporate donors. We have them cleaned and mended, then distribute the clothing at donation events that take the form of “pop-up” shops located at our non-profit community partner locations. We work directly with the staff of the non-profit partner to schedule appointments for some of their female clients who are most in need of professional attire. On the scheduled appointment date Working Wardrobe’s volunteers arrive with an assortment of clothing in the appropriate sizes. Each client receives a one-hour personalized appointment. With help from Working Wardrobe volunteers, participants leave the donation event with a week’s worth of workwear, along with accessories, free of charge. As an important goal of our efforts is to provide confidence, along with clothing, we bring a seamstress with us to all events to ensure that the selected clothing fits each woman appropriately.
To date, we have hosted clothing donation events with several partners in the Greater High Point community. These include organizations such as, the C3 (Community Collaboration for Children). D-UP, Family Justice Center, Family Service of the Piedmont, Human Trafficking Resource Center, and the YWCA. Collectively, Working Wardrobe has hosted hour-long appointments with 29 women, each of whom received approximately one week’s worth of outfits (roughly 21 garments) free of charge. The value of which is over $17,000, in addition to accessories (socks, shoes, purses, etc.).
Other Clothing Donation Initiatives
In addition to our pop-up donation events, we work to get clothing into the hands of those in need in several other ways. We’ve partnered with a number of local organizations to distribute our clothing collection via clothing blessing bags, collaborations with other clothing closets, and by supporting seasonal clothing drives. To date, we collected and distributed over 6,500 articles of clothing (worth over $46,000) to community partners that include The Good Shepherd Shop Clothing Closet, Communities in School’s School Resource Room, and West End Ministries. We’ve also partnered with organizations like the Junior League of High Point and the Rotary Club of High Point to provide clothing to Western North Carolina to aid victims of Hurricane Helene, as well as worked with Mantle Realty’s annual Prom Project and A Cleaner World’s Give A Kid A Coat Campaign.
Filling School Clothing Pantries
A secondary goal of Working Wardrobe’s charitable efforts is to provide clothes to local youth. To accomplish this goal, we will collect attire from both individual and corporate donors. Once clean, mended, and sorted, Working Wardrobe volunteers will donate the collected clothes to the clothing pantries of Title 1 schools in High Point. In order to assist the ongoing efforts to clothe children in the Greater High Point community, we will focus on schools that are not already being supported by organizations such as Communities in Schools. Research shows that more than 20 million children in the United States are currently growing up without basic essentials like clothing, shoes, diapers, and school supplies. Further, two in every five American children are unable to adequately dress themselves each day, and “lack of clothing” accounts for three of the top ten reasons students miss school. Thus, we are passionate about supporting youth by supplementing established clothing pantries at the schools in and around High Point.
Educational Workshops
At Working Wardrobe, we believe in the power of education to empower, and therefore an additional goal of Working Wardrobe is to provide educational opportunities to the female clients of our donation efforts, as well as students who were recipients of our children’s clothing donation efforts. These educational opportunities are designed to help participants develop the tools necessary to succeed in the work environment and by extension facilitate and enrich their lives. In the year ahead, we will organize a series of educational workshops to facilitate professionalism and economic independence. These free classes will focus on topics such as employment etiquette, financial literacy, internet proficiency, interpersonal communication, leadership skills, project management skills, resume writing, and work/life balance.
