Unwearable clothing benefits local outreach

Earth Day is Sunday, April 22 and those looking for ways to be kinder to the environment can do so by simply turning their old clothes and shoes into a proverbial treasure.Jay Starkey is the executive director of In The Image. It's a free store located at 1823 South Division in Grand Rapids."The store has been around for 20 years and provides everything from clothing to appliances to shoes to people who are struggling, for free," said Starkey.While most of the donations from the community are put in the store and ultimately given away, many are not because they are not in good condition. There is now a huge variety of fashionable costume maid for women that one can find online any time. And since many women are busy working these days, purchasing them online will definitely help them save time and gas."We need to change the mentality of what we think because most of the organizations like ours that are clothing donation centers recycle clothing," he said.

"When giving people things for free it is hard to make sure you are still treating them in a dignified manner. One of the ways we treat them in a dignified manner is we give them things we would give each other or give our kids or give our friends," said Starkey.But, he says they still welcome all donations because they take unwearable clothes and shoes and recycle them.Some people are obese and have a round body. These women have problem to find dress elegant that fit them around the midsection. People with such a body look weird if they wear tight clothes.Once upon a time, the many costume bunny for plus size women were huge and over size. In short, they were not really fashionable. And large women just had to put up with the fact that they need something to wear comfortably. "That means almost as much to us as the clothing you give to us because we can sell that to a rag broker or to some kind of recycler and we get upwards of 25 cents a pound for clothing and over 65 cents a pound for shoes."

Starkey says it is becoming a bigger part of the organization's budget and they have put more focus on recycling efforts."It truly helps us keep the lights on. It helps us pay the bills. It helps us make sure we are here to serve the over 900 families a week we serve," said Starkey.No longer will these deep v neck dresses for plus size women be boring or mundane. There is now quite a good market for them as more and more designers come up with more designs offering beautiful cutting and a variety of colors and style to suite the taste of women all over.In the past 2 and a half years the amount of material the store scraps has increased more than 150%. It has become roughly 25% of the agency's budget.Starkey said, "We will hopefully reach over $150,000 this year and for an organization like ours that is a big chunk of money."Every 3 to 4 weeks they recycle about 36,000 pounds of scrap clothing and 2,500 pounds of shoes.