Last night, we had Boutique Night and it was amazing! For the last few weeks, I've been hitting up stylish women in the church to donate unwanted clothes, shoes, and accessories. Most of them clean out their closets this time of year anyway. The response I got blew me away! I expected to receive 8 or 10 bags of clothes. Each girl could probably walk away with 4 or 5 free items. But my friends came through! Four of us spent two hours sorting and setting up all the clothes. Here is a picture of the result:
On the left is the accessory table. We had purses, clutches, hats, and headbands. Past that was a table of XS and S tops. The tall rack was filled with shoes and scarves. The next several shelves were skirts sorted by size, from 0 to 16. The hanging rack you see in the middle is all size medium clothes. The rack on the right has XS to S clothes on the left and L to XL clothes on the right. Out of the camera's view is another table filled with M, L, and XL tops. I am still in awe looking at this picture again!
We started off with all the girls sitting in the chairs. We laid down some ground rules: 1. No complaining or acting embarrassed about your size. God made you the way you are and you need to be happy with yourself. 2. Be courteous (which I knew they all would be). 3. Take one accessory at a time so everyone has a chance to get something. 4. Don't make a mess.
I must say that they followed the rules very well. I had a hard time getting them to sit still and pay attention. Their eyes were wandering and they had difficulty focusing. Wouldn't you??? Finally, I said, "Play Ball!" They all jumped up and made a mad rush for the racks. One girl said it reminded her of Black Friday. So we started calling it Black Monday.
In the end, each girl took home approximately 2 shopping bags full of clothes. A few of them took home full garbage bags. We still had quite a bit left so I invited their mothers to browse when they came to pick them up. One mom outlasted the rest. She is an avid eBayer so I told her she could take some things to sell. She ended up with 2 garbage bags and kept saying, "Are you sure?!?" We loaded up the remainder in garbage bags and were about to load them up into my van. Another youth leader who happened to stop by was still there. She offered to take everything else to a resale shop and donate the profits to our group. I was thrilled I didn't have to haul away all the bags on my own!
It was so much fun and it felt great to give back. I was so exhausted when I got home and I'm still feeling it today. I told all the girls to let me know whenever they wear something new to church. What better feeling is there than getting new, free clothes? Well, seeing 20 ecstatic girls running around giggling out of sheer happiness rates right up there. This morning, I received this message:
That made my day!
2 comments:
Sounds like a fun night!
What a cool thing. I am sure that was great fun.
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