story by Rebekah Folse
photos by Stephanie Orta
Last month, patrons of Southeast Texas gathered at The Art Studio Inc. to participate in a community-wide clothing swap. People were asked to bring their unwanted or unused clothes, over the course of two days, to the studio and then given freedom to search through the other items brought. There was a great variety of women’s, men’s, plus size, formal wear, and even children’s clothes. Shoes, jewelry, dresses, you name it, it was there. The best part, it was absolutely free, though of course, donations are always accepted.
You may be wondering, what does The Art Studio Inc. do with all of the leftover clothes? Surely not every piece of clothing was swapped. Clothes left at the end of the two day swap were donated to a couple of different organizations. One organization was the Dream Center SETX. The Dream Center “is a place that has been set aside…to set people FREE from bondages and strongholds of addictions and other life controlling problems” (dreamcentersetx.org). St. Mark’s Treasure House is the other location that the clothes were delivered to. “For over fifty years the Treasure House has been in Downtown Beaumont providing ‘shopping with a conscience’ (stmarksbeaumont.org).
There’s talk of hosting the clothing swap more than once a year, maybe twice or even quarterly. What do you think? How often would you like to see the Clothing Swap @ TASI?