Joseph’s Coat Celebrates 35 years of Helping Those in Need

Joseph’s Coat, the St. Paul free store located in the heart of West 7th, celebrated opening its doors for the first time 35 years ago last month. 

“In August, we had an open house here for our volunteers to celebrate,” said Rebecca Bedner, Joseph’s Coat’s Executive Director. “Our founder, Pat Fetsch, as well as previous executive director Cheryl Stern, both came and celebrated with us in the fall. And then most recently, we had a fundraiser to celebrate our 35th anniversary and raise funds for our mission.”

That mission, to be a free store, where all are welcome to shop for basic needs in an environment of dignity and respect, has grown from their first location on St. Peter St. in downtown to be in their current location at 1107 West 7th for the past 20 years.

“We have clothes for adults and children,” said Bedner. “We have linens, like sheets and blankets and towels, small household items and hygiene products. And so we try to give away one full size hygiene product every month.”

The store itself is open to clients Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. by appointment only. 

“On Mondays and Wednesdays we see between 200 to 300 shoppers who come into our store,” said Bedner. “Volunteers help with everything from answering the phones, to making appointments, to checking people in, to helping them as they shop.”

“We also have volunteer opportunities on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we receive donations from the community,” she added.

Bedner said it is those volunteers who are really the lifeblood of making their operation work. They do everything from sorting clothes as they come in, to making appointments to helping shoppers find sizes or something that they may be looking for that isn’t out on the floor.

“We have one full time staff and a few part time staff and about 80 volunteers,” she said. “And those volunteers are here on shopping days, donation days, and they’re making sure things run smoothly.”

Bedner said that their volunteer base comes from as far away as Wisconsin and that some of their volunteers have been coming for decades.

“Our volunteer program, I think, is special because we have those people with decades of experience, she said. “People volunteer on different days and they have different things they do together. There’s some groups that have a happy hour, but also have this.”

All of that volunteer time really adds up for the organization, equating to about $400,000 worth of labor annually to help those in need.

Bedner said that, coming into the organization last year as just its fourth Executive Director, she is very fortunate for having such a robust volunteer infrastructure already in place to serve their clients. 

But they can also use more volunteers, especially now that the season is changing.

Bedner said that appointments for donating items and for shopping are backed up a few weeks because there is such demand at the moment.

But, she said, their community partners help provide some of the much-needed goods to their clients.

“The Odd Couple realty team, that’s housed on Grand Avenue, they do a huge coat drive for us every year,” Bedner said. “Their goal is to bring in a thousand coats. There are boxes in the community and they flyer the Macalester-Groveland area.”

Those donations, along with items donated during their regular appointments, go a long way to help the over 3,000 people they serve annually.

“The people who shop in our store make an appointment to come here,” Bedner said. “We try to reduce barriers for them, so we do not have a referral process, and we don’t have any type of verification.”

She said that, while that limits the mount of information they can collect on their clilents, creating an easy, dignified way for them to shop is their goal.

“When you answer the phone and it’s a case manager saying, ‘how do I refer my client?’ or ‘what forms do you need?’ or ‘how do we prove our income?’ or ‘how do we prove who we are?’ ‘or I’m experiencing homelessness, I don’t have an ID,’ and to be able to say, you know, we just need your name and a birthday. Come, we’ll make it work. We’ll figure it out. I think that’s so special because that is not very common,” Bedner said.

And that has been their mission for 35 years, making it easy for those in need to shop with dignity.

Support Joseph’s Coat

• Volunteer. Monday – Thursday. Help sort, stock shelves or people find what they are looking for. Learn more. josephscoatmn.org/volunteer.
• Donate goods. Tuesday and Thursday by appointment only. Gently used clothing and household goods. Learn more josephscoatmn.org/items-goods. 
• Financial support..josephscoatmn.org/ways-to-donate.