ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 2, 1997 TAG: 9704020024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS THE ROANOKE TIMES
A local clothes bank that serves the homeless and others is just as transient as some of its customers.
The Montgomery County Emergency Assistance Program's oft-relocated clothes bank has moved again, to its third location in less than a year.
Now it has joined several other social-services agencies as occupants of the old Richardson-Horne Funeral Home at downtown Christiansburg's 16 East Main St.
Workers at the busy clothes bank say the latest move from the old Health-Tex building is a positive step - even if part of its new display space used to be an embalming room.
"It's going to be very nice. Smaller but better," Melanie Collins, clothes bank manager, said.
The clothes bank has been closed for about two weeks for the move. Plans are to reopen Friday at 8 a.m.
On Monday, Collins said, "I probably had to turn away 25 people, including two homeless families. It just kills me."
Since it opened in the mid-1970s, the clothes bank has moved seven times, according to its founder, the Rev. Harry B. Scott III, president of the Emergency Assistance Program.
"I think it's going to work out," he said of the new facility, which shares the building with other charitable organizations such as the American Red Cross, the United Way of Montgomery, Radford & Floyd and the offices of the county Community Shelter.
The clothes bank was closed for several months last year before it moved across Roanoke Street to the Health-Tex building's basement. That arrangement was understood to be temporary from the beginning, as the county Industrial Development Authority had redevelopment plans for the old industrial building.
That transient arrangement was better than nothing for clothes bank clients - but just barely. Collins said the Health-Tex basement was dingy and expensive to heat.
Moving again has been disruptive but welcomed in the sense that the new location offers a brighter atmosphere, she said.
The only physical drawback is a shortage of storage space, so Scott said the clothes bank will have to be more selective about the items it accepts and stores.
Beyond that, the procedures will remain the same. The clothes bank sells grocery bags of items for $2, unless indigent clients have obtained a voucher that waives all costs.
Scott, a supporter of welfare reform, believes customers prefer to pay for what they get, instead of accepting clothes as a handout.
Collins said a surprising spectrum of people use the clothes bank, from welfare recipients to working parents who can't afford to buy new clothes for themselves or their children.
Some new rules apply for use of the new building, however. Collins and Scott say they want all clients and donors of clothing to use the rear of the facility for access to the clothes bank.
To get there, they'll have to use an alley off East Main Street that leads beside the Wimmer Building to a parking lot behind the white, two-story frame office building where the clothes bank now resides.
Office hours will remain the same. The clothe bank will be open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Tuesdays 6 p.m. to 8 p.m; and Saturdays 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Collins said the clothes bank currently needs warm-weather apparel, clothes for children and adolescents and houseware items such as linens, tableware and cookware.
Scott hopes the clothes bank will stay where it is indefinitely, which pleases Collins and her staff of volunteers, who want to concentrate on serving customers instead of moving boxes and building shelves.
"There are so many people that need the help. We've been booming," she said.
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