Clothing fest meets community needs in Coaldale
Almost every town or city in Canada has a food bank to assist those who are unable to look after their own needs. Coaldale’s community food bank was established in 1995 and continues to operate by providing 40–50 food hampers each month and significantly more during Christmas.
Twice a year, Coaldale Mennonite Church hosts a clothing giveaway to supply Coaldale and surrounding community members in need. (Photo supplied)
In 2009, a group of women from Coaldale Mennonite Church (CMC), under the leadership of Carolyn Penner-Klassen, offered to take over a program that had been initiated by the Coaldale Family and Community Support Services a few years earlier, but was to be discontinued due to a lack of venue space.
CMC’s clothing fest was born out of a need to supply many of the poor and needy people in our community with appropriate seasonal clothing, especially for people on social assistance, recent immigrants, and, more recently, unhoused people and refugees.
Clothing fest is held in our gym twice a year in April and October. Leading up to the event, clothing and household goods are collected from the congregation, the community, and from estate donations. Everything is received and given away free of charge to those who come.
The week before the event, dedicated volunteers bring tables, clothing racks, bags, boxes, and totes of clothing from storage. Everything is carefully sorted, folded, and presented by gender, age group, and size on the tables in the gym. After 17 years, our team of a dozen ladies, led primarily by Jodi Reed and Vivian Sharp (a former CMC member), has become organized and efficient in getting the hundreds of items ready for distribution.
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. Recently, we had about 150 people lined up before the doors opened. Well over 200 people from Coaldale, Lethbridge, and the outlying communities were served in three hours. While many shoppers express their appreciation for all we do, we hold the event to honour God first and to serve his people. Much like Matthew 25:40 says (my paraphrase), “As much as we do this for the least of these, we do it for God.”
After the doors close, many hands make quick work of sorting the leftover items and putting them away again. Often by two o’clock you cannot tell we hosted an event in the gym. After the most recent event, our 4,400-square-foot gym, piled high with clothing, was reduced to a vanload of boxes. These boxed-up items were then donated to Streets Alive Mission in Lethbridge, to be used for their homeless and rehousing projects.
Clothing fest continues to bless the Coaldale community as these volunteers use their gifts, talents, and time to bless others.
– Pieter L. van Ewijk
Audio is generated with AI voice technology.
