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Helping Hands Closet provides personalized service
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JoAnn Truax, coordinator of Helping Hands Closet at Western Reserve United Methodist Church in Canfield, shows a beaded wedding gown that’s available. Racks and turnstiles at the closet are filled with new and gently worn merchandise that is sold for reasonable prices. Money benefits charitable projects of the church.
By LINDA M. LINONIS
Canfield
Helping Hands Closet at Western Reserve United Methodist Church offers a special service to its customers with volunteers acting as “personal shoppers.”
A “wish list” keeps track of what customers are seeking in particular sizes or certain items. So if you’re looking for a size 2 dress and Helping Hands gets one or more, a volunteer will call the customer.
“We have a following,” said JoAnn Truax, Helping Hands coordinator. “People like the personal attention.”
In general, Helping Hands offers new and gently used clothing for men, women, teens and children at very reasonable prices.
Truax is assisted by Audrey Creed and Bonnie Smiley, church members, and Joyce McFadden and Judy Means, her sisters. Truax has a marketing background, and her sisters owned stores. So it’s no wonder they’ve taken those skills and turned the closet into a “boutiquelike” atmosphere.
The room is packed with clothing displayed on turnstiles, shoes on racks and accessories such as belts, scarves and purses grouped together. Clothing is clean, neatly folded and organized by size. Truax said donations come in “all the time,” so the volunteers are continually busy with sorting and organizing merchandise.
Helping Hands is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays, and business usually gets brisk around 10. It’s been a fixture at the church since 1973 when it was founded by Evelyn Seifarth and Dorothy Smith. Truax became coordinator in April when the closet’s future was in doubt. “I prayed about it,” she said.
Truax and Marsha Hamilton are co-chairwomen of the church-sponsored GAB sale, which stands for garage, attic and basement. Clearance items from Helping Hands Closet end up at that sale in May or are donated to Red Bird Mission in Kentucky, a mission project of the church. The donated merchandise is used in one way or another to help people.
Truax said some people may be surprised that Helping Hands Closet charges for clothing. Those funds are used for other charitable programs of the church.
Truax said the closet gets donations of all sorts — when people are downsizing, paring down their own closets and from estates. Clothes for all seasons come in year-round, so Truax and the other volunteers get them ready for sale and stored in boxes until it’s time to rotate seasonal clothing.
At times, the closet has vintage jewelry for sale. Right now, if you’re a woman with a 10 shoe size, the closet has some trendy footwear. Popular sizes from 7 to 9 don’t stay on the shelves too long. Also on display now are women’s jeans in smaller sizes detailed with sparkly designs.
There’s even a small “party” clothes corner where a beaded Victorian-style wedding gown is showcased. A sign in the closet reads, “So much shopping, so little time.”
“You have to like people to do this,” Truax said. “I can’t go anywhere without someone who comes here seeing me.”
Truax said this volunteer service “is a lot of fun.” And, she added, people have fun at the closet, and the prices aren’t hard on their budgets.
She said now’s the time to buy for next summer as the closet is having its seasonal clearance with 50 percent off. Truax said one customer took advantage of the sale to buy items for another charitable project.
A clothing giveaway is being planned for Sept. 20.