Bloomington store helps troubled women dress for interviews

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) - By the time Alana Luttrull's female clients are ready to look for employment, they've grappled with such problems as addiction and substance abuse, mental and behavioral health issues and/or homelessness.

What to wear to a job interview is the least of their worries.

Luttrull, an employment coach with Centerstone, knows how they feel. She sends the women to My Sister's Closet with vouchers for professional interview attire. After all, before she was sitting in an office wearing black boots under a long gray and black skirt, she was in her clients' shoes.

"I didn't have the simple things like a white button-up shirt to wear to an interview," Luttrull told The Herald-Times (http://bit.ly/1wxAQws). "All of my clothes were being washed in a lake. It's not that they were bad clothing; they just weren't appropriate for an interview. And I certainly didn't have a pair of dressy shoes. I had hiking boots and a pair of cleats."

On her path to recovering from an addiction to opiates that started at age 8 and struggling with untreated mental illness, Luttrull spent half a year living in the woods of Brown County.

"I really want to get a job, but I know that I'm not prepared for the interview," she said of that time in her life. "Not that I can't answer the questions and present well to a potential employer, but I simply don't have the clothes."

Her recovery engagement coach with Centerstone pushed her to visit My Sister's Closet, where women sent by Bloomington agencies with clothing vouchers can receive two full outfits to wear interchangeably while interviewing for work, and will be given three additional outfits after being offered employment.

Five years ago, Luttrull left the store, then on West Second Street, with a white button-up shirt, a khaki knee-length skirt, a purse to replace her hemp backpack, and black patent leather shoes with a low heel.

"Beautiful shoes. I still actually have them," Luttrull said. "Because of the clothing I got from My Sister's Closet, I got the job. Because of the job, I got the apartment. Because I had safe, stable housing, I managed to get additional training and schooling."

Much has changed for Luttrull and for My Sister's Closet. Luttrull is a certified recovery specialist with the same agency that helped her get back on her feet. The nonprofit thrift store has moved to its fourth location, now on South College Avenue, and 1,400 women ages 16 to 73 have used vouchers from more than 40 participating social service agencies at My Sister's Closet.

"We hear over and over and over again when they come back and they say, 'This was the deciding, changing moment in my life, when things started moving forward,'" said Sandy Keller, founder and executive director of My Sister's Closet. "'This is where I started to be more proud of myself, because I didn't know how to talk about my past before, and you showed me how to do it effectively in a persuasive way that was honest and credible, that made someone else believe in me and hire me.' Those are huge things that someone tells you."

A 2014 grant of more than $20,000 from nonprofit support group 100+ Women Who Care doubled My Sister's Closet's savings and allowed the thrift store to move into the new space, Keller said. Everything about the new location was designed to make customers feel as good on the inside as Keller hopes they will on the outside, from walls painted "power raspberry" pink and adorned with motivational quotes, to soft dressing room lighting with mirrors that don't distort the figure.

And low-income women with clothing vouchers aren't the only shoppers at My Sister's Closet. The thrift store, which features formal wear, business attire and casual clothes, is open to the public.

"Because we are able to price things the way that we do on the floor here, we try to make it so that if you are one of those women that really needs help, you can still figure it out to look credible and professional," Keller said. "For the women that are just insane thrift store shoppers after the amazing find or the cool deal, then it's here for them, too."

The new location is 4,300 square feet, a major upgrade from the approximately 780-square-foot previous facility on Second Street, which needed three off-site storage units to hold the store's stock. My Sister's Closet now can store all donated items at the new location, with room left to benefit its continuing Success Institute program.

Before the move, Success Institute events, where women in leadership roles run workshops on job interviewing and life skills, had to be held at rented spaces and advertised to the general public at a significant expense. The new store has rooms for trying on outfits and trying out interview tactics, and Keller is looking to recruit volunteer mentors to teach financial skills.

"The whole philosophy is that you and every other woman in this community is symbolically my sister, and I care about your well-being, and it's important for me that you not only survive, that you thrive and that you are there, eventually, to be able to get back on your feet and help another woman that would need you," Keller said. "Women by force are something to be reckoned with. When you bring an army of us together, there is nothing women in Bloomington cannot do in our community."

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Information from: The Herald Times, http://www.heraldtimesonline.com