We opened for the first time on August 21, 2010.  In that time, we have helped over 300 families with clothing and bedding.  In addition to our normal, once-a-month opening, we had a special Back To School event in September.  Operation Prom Princess in March allowed us to give away prom dresses to 20 girls who may not have been able to enjoy their senior prom.  We also helped provide clothing, bedding, toys, and other household goods to three families who lost everything in fires.

To celebrate our first anniversary, Bea’s Love Closet will be holding a picnic and auction at the church on Friday, August 19.  The picnic will start at 6 PM, with the auction beginning at 7.  Baked goods will also be for sale throughout the evening.  Proceeds from the auction and bake sale will go to help pay advertising expenses for BLC.

Items for auction include a Joyce Meyer devotional, a gift basket of Bath and Body Works goodies, handmade jewelry and notecards, a photo session from JC Penney, a cake from Dragonfly Cakes, and much more.

If you would like to volunteer to help at Bea’s Love Closet or if you have something to donate for the auction or bake sale, please call Lynn at 240-8208.

Congratulations to the winners in our drawing!  I am only using first names here.  If you won, you will receive a call or a letter soon!

Bath & Body Works gift card—Morgan

Claire’s gift card—Samantha

Flowers—Kelcey, Isabella, and Kendra

Congratulations, girls!!!  Hope your prom is all you have been dreaming of.

First, an update on what we collected.  We started collecting prom dresses in August.  In the seven months since, we were able to collect 93 dresses, in different sizes, colors, and styles.  We also had nearly 100 pairs of shoes.  A local florist, Angel’s Floral Creations, donated 3 sets of prom flowers to give away.  We also had gift cards for Claire’s and Bath and Body Works donated for the event.  A Mary Kay Consultant, Cris Culpepper, generously donated make-up samples for the girls.

We began setting appointments for prom dresses back in January.  We scheduled two girls at a time to come in for half hour appointments.  Nearly 30 girls signed up to come in.  Not all of them came in.  In all, I believe there were 21 girls who came in to look at and try on dresses.  Of those 21, 13 walked away with the dress she would wear to her prom.

I was asked if it was really worth all of the hard work ahead of time for just a handful of girls.  My answer is YES!  Even if only one girl had been able to find a dress it would have been worth it.  Nearly every one of those girls said, “I don’t know how I would have been able to go to prom without you.”  Even if I’d only heard that once, it would have totally worth all the work that I had done.

This is the first dress that went on Saturday. It was donated with a pair of matching shoes. The shoes fit the girl who took the dress!

This dress is more of a bright blue than it looks in the picture. It was one of our most popular dresses. Most every girl in this size tried it on.

One thing caught my attention as soon as I walked into the Children’s Clothing room.  It’s the space where we have the infant clothing.  I took a picture, and as soon as I am able to load it onto the computer I will share it here.  In the meantime, let me see if I can describe the storage area to you.

There are two shelving units–one is a metal unit with four shelves and the other is a wooden unit with five shelves.  It’s really not enough space for what we have, as it is difficult to separate the baby boy clothes from the baby girl clothes.  Even more than that, though, the problem is the condition of the units.  Both are in pretty bad shape, leaning away from the wall and looking like they might collapse at any moment.  I don’t like having that there.  I’d hate to see someone get hurt by the shelves falling down.

I guess that is our greatest need at the moment–shelving space for those clothes.  When you pray about our ministry, please pray for this need.  I don’t want to stop providing clothes for infants.  At the same time, I don’t want a safety hazard to interfere with our work.

You know, there are moment when I wonder about Bea’s Love Closet. Is it really making a difference? Then we are open for just a few hours each month, and I can see the good we are doing. The people who come in with nothing and go out with bags full of clothing and tears in their eyes…. No matter how hard the work is, seeing the gratitude on those faces is enough to keep me going.

While this is a fun time for most high school students, it can also be a very expensive time. Bea’s Love Closet wants to help with some of those costs.

We are collecting dresses, shoes, and other accessories for prom to give away in our first Prom Spectacular. So far, we have collected about 3 dozen dresses. We are still looking for more! If you have a gently used prom dress or bridesmaid dress that you don’t need, we would love to make use of it.

 On Saturday, March 26, we will hold our Prom Spectacular. Teen girls from all over the county are invited to come and choose a dress at no cost. We will also have shoes, jewelry and other accessories available. Our goal is to help girls go to prom, no matter what their financial situation. We are also looking for local hair and nail salons that might be willing to donate a gift card. If you know of anything that might be able to help with that, please let us know.

Any questions? Please contact Lynn at 517-240-8208.

It quickly came back to mind today when I listened to my voicemail.

I was at a baby shower Saturday afternoon when the phone rang.  I didn’t recognize the number, so I just let it go to voicemail.  It wasn’t until this afternoon that I had the chance to listen to that message.  It brought tears to my eyes.

The caller was a woman from Lansing who had just heard my interview on Family Life Radio.  She wanted to talk to me about volunteering to help at Bea’s Love Closet.  And if I understood her correctly, she wants to learn how to start Bea’s Love Closet ministry in her own church.

Wow!  Our first franchise!

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: It breaks my heart to see the amount of need in this area for warm clothing.  At the same time, I am humbled beyond words to be in a position to help  fill that need.  And to now have people in other communities reaching out to help us….

This is nothing short of a God Thing!

Right now, we are only able to offer clothing to these families.  In December, we were able to provide Christmas gifts to the children of one family through generous donations from annonymous community members and from GG’s Walkers.  It felt so good to be able to provide a good Christmas to a family that otherwise may have had nothing.

However, my hope is to be able to do so much more.  I want to provide clothing, bedding, dishes, toys–anything to families facing disasters that can make the healing a little easier.  Is it going to be possible to do this?  I don’t know.  At this time, I don’t see that we have the storage space for all of that.  What I do know is that God is in control!  He will provide us with donations and space to hold those donations if this is in His plans for us.