Care and Compassion for Customers

Kathy Baden rings up a sale, but she's more interested in the customers than their purchases.

Barb McClish, left, and Kathy Braden, right, pose with a customer and her daugher

This 'teen zone' area of the store was painted and decorated by Cross students.

by Diane Strzelecki
July 2007

Barbara McClish, part-time clerk at Caring Hands Thrift Shop in Yorkville, Illinois, sees a wide range of customers every day. “You’ve got the bargain hunters, the ‘regulars,’ and the customers who just come to visit.” Sometimes ‘well-off’ customers come in to show their support. “They pick out a $5 item, pay for it with a $20 bill and say, ‘Keep the change,’ as a donation.”

This is no ordinary thrift shop: it is a ministry of Cross Lutheran Church in Yorkville (see "More than a Store") and a longtime vision of member Kathy Braden. Hired by the church as Human Care Coordinator in 2006, Braden is responsible for two part-time employees, more than 30 volunteers, and nearly 300 55-gallon bags of donations a month. But it’s the customers that command her attention. (See "The Shop Manager and Ministry.")

“Part of this ministry is helping people who can’t afford basic items, who have experienced bad times or even tragedies such as fires,” Braden says. “But a huge part of this ministry is being there for people.”

McClish and Braden remember one of their first customers, a mother who came from a local women’s shelter who had been given vouchers to purchase clothing and supplies for her 18-month-old baby.

“We helped her bring the items out to the car and, to our shock, she was tying her baby into the bucket seat of the car with a rope,” Braden says. “It just broke my heart.”

“She wasn’t thinking to buy a car seat because she thought they would be too expensive,” McClish adds. “We gave her a car seat.”

Braden shakes her head at the memory. “As hard as it is to see situations like that, that’s what we’re here for,” she says. “A lot of ministry goes on in the parking lot.”

And the longer the shop is open, the more such stories there are. Braden recalls talking with a customer who had obviously been crying only to learn that she was grieving her 18-year-old son who had recently died of a drug overdose.

“She had come from Wal-Mart after breaking down in the middle of the store,” Braden says. “She told me people were avoiding her, looking at her like she was crazy, so she decided to come to our shop because she knew she’d find someone who would talk to her.”

The grieving mother showed Braden a photo of her son and they hugged and cried together. Before she left, Braden gave her a frame for the treasured photo.

“She came back two days later to thank me—it meant so much to her that I gave her that frame,” Braden says. “It means so much to people when you show them you care about them.”

The ladies note that they’ve put considerable effort into eliminating the “thrift shop” aura. “We want our customers to feel like they are respected, not like they are second-class citizens,” Braden says. She and the other shop workers consider it their highest priority to allow customers to maintain their dignity and give them the respect they deserve. And if they don’t see a regular customer for some time, they send a card or give them a call.

Working at the shop means experiencing the spectrum of emotions. McClish notes that you never know what will happen that day. “We never know what God has in store for us, but we know He’ll give us the right words to say,” she says.

They all have become familiar with one emotion in particular: grief. A great number of donations come from people who bring in the belongings of a loved one who has passed away. Braden tells the story of a man who brought in a tattered suitcase containing the last of his wife’s things.

“They had been married for 60 years before she died – this was a real letting go for him,” she recalls. “He talked with me about her for a long time.” After he left, Braden opened the suitcase to find carefully folded articles of clothing and neatly rolled belts inside.

“You could see that he had painstakingly and lovingly put the items in the suitcase to give away,” she said. Experiences like this led to Braden signing up her employees and volunteers for grief training to help them deal with the strong emotion and help the customers who are experiencing it. It’s just one of the ways Braden shows compassion and concern for those who work alongside her in the ministry.

About one-half of the 30+ volunteers are members of Cross Lutheran; others belong to partner churches and others are regular shoppers who like the store so much they decided to help out, too. According to Braden, people come to shop and stay.

“They might say ‘looks like you could use some help’ or ‘this looks like fun, like you’re having a great time’ so we invite them to be a part of it,” she says.

“We’ll have a customer call us up and say ‘I’m having a hard week, can I just come in and hang out at the store?’” McClish says. “Of course we say yes!” She notes that she really looks forward to her shift at the shop; it’s “not like work at all.”

A Kendall county judge periodically assigns young offenders community service hours at the shop. Braden feels blessed to be able to minister to these kids as well. McClish remembers one teenager in particular. “Oh, she had a bad attitude, a total chip on her shoulder, telling us ‘I’d never shop in a place like this. I just talked with her, and listened to her, and pretty soon you could see she felt just like one of us.” Braden agrees: “She’s one of the best workers we’ve had.”

During one of her presentations on community ministry that she gives to local churches, Braden calls the church community to have ‘God vision’ – to see people through the eyes of God.