Donating clothes to the less fortunate is definitely more about the altruistic end goal (getting goods to those who truly need them), not the presentation (thoughtful shelf-scapes and pretty packaging). But First Corinthian Baptist Church (FCBC), located in Harlem, achieves both one day each year at its annual Clothing Mall event.

The church gets transformed into a mall for a day, merchandized by item type, complete with volunteer “personal shoppers” and nice packaging (shopping bags, tissue paper, and such) for shoppers to cart home their finds. The cost of a trip to FCBC’s Clothing Mall for the local community members and residents of nearby homeless shelters? Nothing, of course. The personal shoppers came about last year, “to give the experience a special touch,” says senior pastor Mike Walrond, who’s been at FCBC for 11 years.

Prior to the Clothing Mall’s inception in 2012, there was a woman who received all of the church’s clothing donations and would set up a table outside of the church almost daily. The donation table tradition discontinued after she passed away a few years ago. “It always bothered me to just have the clothing out on the street for people to rummage through; there was no dignity in that,” Pastor Walrond recalls. And so, the "Mall" was born: “We wanted to really honor those in need of help, so they don’t feel like people are throwing hand-me-downs or old rags at them,” Walrond says. “There’s no reason they shouldn’t be treated with the same dignity as someone else who can go shopping at a high-end store.” Donations start pouring in roughly six weeks before the event, and last year, there were over 5,000 pieces to “shop.”