NORTH ATTLEBORO
A stained glass window once overlooked the free clothing pantry at Faith Fellowship United Methodist Church in Mansfield.
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,” it read.
The scripture continues, “For thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
Corlis Moniz has seen hundreds of strangers in her nine years manning the ministry’s clothing pantry known as Clothes To Go. But she would tell you every person she’s met has felt like an angel.
The pantry, or boutique, as Moniz calls it, was started as a simple effort to build a community that supports one another. It grew into a strong network of donors, volunteers, non-profit partners and guests, all wrapped in this premise that they each held a unique part of the pantry’s community.
And so, when the pantry went mostly offline after the Mansfield church shut its doors in 2016, its absence was felt. Donations kept pouring in. Volunteers kept sorting, even knowing they were without a location where they could give, at least for the time being.
They opened by appointment and made deliveries themselves, on their own time.
“The pastor said, ‘We’re going to go to the last minute,’” Moniz said.
“For months our sorters huddled in a basement room of the church building to prepare the clothing for distribution, all the while workers were upstairs dismantling the woodwork and architectural amenities for auction,” Pastor David A. Arruda said.
But after almost two years, that’s no longer needed.
Clothes To Go is finally set to return to the mission from which it began.
The boutique will reopen at the church’s new location at 20 Hoppin Hill Ave. in North Attleboro Saturday morning.
And Moniz said it’s a tribute to the hard work of two women, Joyce Niemi and Linda Jacobson, who started the nearly decade-old pantry with a simple idea to ignite a small clothing exchange that recycled new or gently used clothing within the community, at no cost to its members.
“We were small, with about 12 people left in our pews, but we said, ‘We want to be an outgoing church,’” Moniz said. “We said, ‘What’s heavy on our hearts?’ and decided it was feeding and clothing.”
But quickly after their mission began, it expanded into something new.
“Within a few weeks we were getting clothing in like you wouldn’t believe,” Moniz said.
The pantry expanded from a small closet in the Mansfield church to an entire floor.
It started working with other non-profits across the state, country and even the world, distributing everything from scrubs, suits and culinary attire for working professionals to everyday clothes for residents of battered women’s homes and homeless shelters.
Since its inception nine years ago the pantry has collected, processed and distributed nearly 2.5 million pounds of clothes from as close as Mansfield and North Attleboro to as far as Maine, Texas, Zambia and Sierra Leone.
Arruda said the pantry is a small part of the church’s vision for a global ministry.
“Sometimes that means across the street, but sometimes that means across the world,” he said.
Though Mansfield and North Attleboro are small towns in the larger scheme of things, Arruda said, it doesn’t mean they can’t have impact.
“A lot of people get hung up on the address. Jesus never liked a permanent address, and he proved it on Easter Sunday. It’s not about where you lay your hat, but what you do from there,” he said.
But the heart and soul of the operation was giving back at home, through a walk-in boutique where guests themselves can pick out the clothes they need. It’s about creating a familiar place that can feel like home.
“People think of a clothing pantry and they think of a free table of rags,” Moniz said. Clothes To Go is the complete opposite. Volunteers quality check the clothing and work with guests to learn their names and sense of style. They ask questions and share stories and already have suggestions on mind the next time a guest stops in.
Moniz said this is where she found angels, in these relationships.
Volunteers rejuvenated the pantry’s spirit when she thought it was time to call it quits.
Donors consistently come back to share stories about seeing their donations in the community and feeling the blessing of what they alone could do.
And guests open up and share stories about their lives, and oftentimes come back to help when they can.
“It’s not about the clothes,” Moniz said. “It’s about the relationships you make with the soul. They come in here, some of them have never been to church before, but suddenly they feel like ‘This is my church.’ They feel comfortable. That’s what this is about.”
The pantry will officially reopen Saturday from 9 to 11 a.m., though it is also available by appointment at 508-339-6040.
New, nearly new and gently used clothing, handbags and shoes are welcome through the lower level of the church (entrance G) on Tuesdays 10 a.m. to noon and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., or by appointment. A collection shed will soon be available to receive donations at any time.
