Mikeala's Experience

My group and I experienced an emotionally rewarding and uplifting experience working with New Circles. New Circles provides the community with multiple services including a clothing bank, skills training, and settlement support. Their settlement support service provides refugees with help finding housing, childcare, or employment or guidance navigating the immigration process. The skills training services provide classroom and hands-on retail and customer service foundations as well as business office skills. The training program also teaches job search skills such as resume writing, and assists with job searching and interviews.
When first arriving at New Circles we were given a training session on the history, services and safety procedures. After a tour, we participated in their volunteer opportunity of working alongside their retail and customer service skill trainees in their clothing bank named Gently Loved Outfits to Wear (GLOW). GLOW provides a retail experience to families who live within the poverty level and cannot afford clothing. The store has racks of clothing organized by gender as well as a youth section divided by age. I was placed in the youth section where I had the chance to organize, sort, and restock racks as well as assisting the clients. As a clothing retail employee, as soon as I saw clutter and disorderly racks of clothing it was satisfying to arrange them to make a more visually appealing space. The only guidance I was given in regards to organizing was that the boys clothing went on the top racks and girls on the bottom, so I used my best judgement to determine if the clothing item was more masculine or feminine and decided to organize the clothing by grouping all the tops together and then placing the bottoms together so it would be simpler to pick out an outfit for a child. I do not have any children so I found it difficult to determine what sizes would fit certain ages, being that the racks were divided up between four different age groups and a larger section for babies. I used my best judgement to complete this task and unlike my work at a clothing store, it did not have to be precise.  

New Circles clothing bank exemplifies a sustainable opportunity for someone willing to give away clothing. They even donate the unwearable or distressed clothing to The Kidney Foundation to turn the clothing into a profit and raise money for research. Instead of having the clothing end up in a landfill for hundreds of years, they are passed down to someone who needs them most. It was very insane seeing the donation room with thousands of clothing items, realizing while it was all generous donations, it was not the clothing New Circles needed the most (with the high priority being winter clothing this time of year). But there were many volunteers willing to help out and sort through the piles and find the best garments to go out on the floor. Winter clothing is the one category they ask for the most due to the number of refugees coming from warm climate weather and not being able to afford the high priced coats. I had an unfortunate experience having to help out a client looking for a winter coat but not having one available for her, having to recommend layering the thinner jacket options.
Unlike the families in need that New Circles supports, it is very rare that I would even need a clothing item being that I have a closet full, and I often do not have to worry about the funds to purchase a clothing item I need. Just thinking about someone having the anxiety of not being able to clothe their family made me feel guilty and sorrowful. Having the ability to share my past retail experience and knowledge gained about the retail industry in our program and using it to aid a great organization that needs the support creates less guilt and provides the feeling of achievement. This experience inspired me to volunteer more often and to give back to the community and those in need.

To learn more about Mikeala, click here to view her introduction post!