Mobile Clothing Closet hits the road helping people across Eastern Iowa

JOHNSON COUNTY, Iowa (KCRG) - The Corridor Community Action Network launched its Mobile Clothing Closet in November. Since then, it’s made stops across Eastern Iowa and served nearly 150 individuals and 12 families.

Mandi Nichols is the director of CCAN. She says the idea for the project came during a winter clothing drive last year. “We had a lot of people who were asking, we just need school clothes, and we need work clothes, so then we started reaching out to some of the other organizations we network with,” says Nichols. She says the non-profit discovered a gap in services, and started working on ideas to fill it.

After months of hard work and fundraising, CCAN purchased a 33-ft RV and transformed it into a mobile closet, filled front to back with professional clothing, school outfits and winter gear.

“It feels really good, its definitely more than we ever set out to do initially. Its definitely the biggest project we have ever done,” says Nichols. The mobile closet is a free resource, and intended to be a permanent project for CCAN.

Brandon Engmark is a volunteer with the Mobile Clothing Closet. He says the kinds of people they help vary depending on where they stop, so they try to keep a wide variety of clothing stocked in the RV. “I think its kind of important to have a no questions asked, no means tested way for people to get the clothing they need,” says Engmark.

Anyone interested in volunteering or donating to help the Mobile Clothing Closet can find more information here.

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