I was looking through my spreadsheet the other day (yes, I’m a nerd!), and realized that the very first pile of clothes we gave away was on February 18th – exactly a year ago today!!
Now back then it was just a fun little experiment we were trying with no clue it would turn into what it is today, but that’s the magic of life isn’t it? You’re just minding your business one day, and then BAM – a wonderful opportunity is dropped in your lap and you didn’t even see it coming!
And in this particular case, it was my mother who dropped it into my lap 🙂
Last February she intercepted some bags of clothes my brother was about to send off to Goodwill, and asked me if I thought our folks at the free farmer’s market we volunteer at would want them. I told her there was only one way to find out, and I threw them up on hangers and then watched what happened next! And boy did they flew off the shelves!
(That pic up top is the very first pop up we did – a happy accident!)
They were practically all gone within the hour, and what leftovers we had we brought out the next week to our church’s community dinner and again they were a hit. So my brother kept shoveling over more and more clothes each week (he may or may not have an addiction!), and as the weeks passed others started joining in too and cleaning out their closets for our unhoused friends.
It was super fun and felt good helping our fellow neighbors, but we didn’t think too much about it until Micah Ministries announced they were shuttering their closet in April to refocus on their core mission of shelter. A closet I adored volunteering in and was essentially the city’s central source of free clothing!
It was at that moment I knew this project had to be more of a “thing,” so I started putting some real effort behind it. I came up with a name for it, built out a website, created all the socials even though I had sworn off social media! (PS: everyone in this town is on Facebook or Instagram!), and then hit the streets begging local thrift shops to pass me over all their leftovers.
MANARC and Provisions were the first two organizations to believe in us and became our first two partners – both fantastic non-profits themselves! – and over time a dozen or so others came on board – as well as YOU GUYS!!! – and our initial fear of not having enough clothes to sustain us week in and week out slowly subsided.
And now here we are today! 100+ pop ups later and 50,000 items given away, still experimenting and enjoying the journey all thanks to my beautiful mother! So thanks mom!! For a fun new project for our community, but also for creating me 😂
And that’s the story of how the FXBG Free Closet came about. I won’t even try to guess what’ll happen in this next year, but so long as the need is out there we’ll continue fighting to solve it! It’s not easy, but we have proved it’s do-able!
So thanks to each and every one of YOU who have supported us and donated to us along the way as well. Not only for all the items you’ve brought to help the flow coming, but for making all this more FUN too 🙂 I feel like I’ve made friends for life here, and I know our friends on the streets more than appreciate it too. I’ll have to start sharing more of their stories here as they’re all wildly beautiful people and continually tell me to thank y’all!
SO THANK YOU!! Let’s do it all again this year!
Your crazy closet friend,
– X
(Co)Founder, FXBG Free Closet
PS: If you haven’t seen it yet, check out our “Friends of The Closet” page and look for your name ; ) If it’s missing and you’ve donated or volunteered with us, let me know and I will quickly resolve that!