The Story of Impact’s Clothing Ministry
By Patrick Lemmons
It is almost impossible for someone to attempt to better themselves when they don’t have a functional pair of shoes. Or to begin to dig out of a financial hole when their kids continually need new clothes for school. The need for a clothing ministry at Impact became immediately obvious in the early years. It began as a small, ad-hoc effort, loosely coordinated by a few people—including founding ministers—back when the church met in the gym at Stude Park. At one point it operated out of a tiny rented building by a gas station, and later even from the church office.
Over time, different members stepped in to help keep it going. A member couple once ran it out of the same cramped building on Washington Avenue used by all the other ministries. When Impact moved into its current location, the ministry came under the umbrella of the Resource Center food pantry, and its leaders through the years kept the Clothing Ministry going as best they could—sharing a cramped space with the growing food pantry.
I was one of those people who led the ministry for a time, when I beg
an working with our Resource Center after Hurricane Harvey. We had a portable building on campus that we adapted, and all our families crammed into it ten people at a time to look for clothes. As the size and scale of the food pantry continued to grow, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, the need was apparent for the clothes ministry to have its own dedicated leadership, and today the Clothing Ministry is in its strongest form yet.
Led by a team of mostly retired Impact members, the ministry continues to have a large, well-organized space open year-round. This space serves the Homeless Ministry, our Arms of Hope social workers, and others who come by appointment or referral. (It does, however, have to be moved box by box to the Resource Center’s non-air conditioned upstairs during the six-week summer VBS).
Because the Resource Center now serves up to one thousand families a week, there isn’t time or space to permanently offer clothes to that many people. They are, however, provided the opportunity on a quarterly basis through large and well-organized giveaways. These take over our entire main building, and draw hundreds of people from across the city.
Running a Clothing Ministry is a never-ending, dusty, and often thankless task. What began as a small, shared effort has grown into a vital ministry —one that can both help a specific individual coming out of homelessness, for example, as well as the hundreds of Resource Center working families just needing a little help to make ends meet. And your ongoing donations of clothes, other household items, and funds continue to make that happen!
