It looks like your typical, high-end boutique. Cheery chalkboard signs bear messages like "Shop Your Blues Away" and "Everything Is Coming up Roses." Underneath, clothes, purses, accessories and home goods bearing labels like Kate Spade, Anthropologie and Lululemon are clean, neat and new-looking, organized by style or color.
It's a warm, creative, welcoming place. But it is far from typical.
This is Live Thankfully, an upscale resale shop with a very specific mission and purpose, the brainchild of Texas native and now enthusiastic Arkansan Kimberly Cook.
Cook's husband, Robert Cook, is senior pastor at St. Andrew's Church. Through that, the entire family has had a great deal of experience in mission work.
But when Kimberly and Robert Cook attended a banquet for Immerse Arkansas, a nonprofit program dedicated to helping teenagers aging out of the foster care system, she was particularly moved.
"A lot of them end up on the streets downtown," Kimberly Cook explains. "No family, no connections, no resources, no job skills. ... I looked at my husband and said, 'What can we do about this?'"
They went home and talked to their teenage children, who have spent time working with women and orphans in Kenya, and they came up with the idea for a garage sale at the church. That sale raised $3,000, enough to do a one-month lease at a small space in the Shoppes at Rodney Parham shopping center. Everything was word of mouth.
Now, two years later, they're in the larger space next door, in what used to be Fifth Season, and have a steady stream of shoppers, donors and volunteers.
They accept donations of new and gently used women's clothes, shoes, handbags, accessories and decorative home items. The donations are then carefully sorted, steamed, tagged and displayed for sale.
In addition to everyday clothes and items, the store also has an area of formal wear, some of it brand-new. Their clientele is made up of people looking for brand names at lower prices but also people who can only afford to spend $5 on a top.
Cook explains that they know the principal at Little Rock Christian High School through Texas connections and his mother-in-law owns high-end dress stores in Philadelphia. She came by Live Thankfully once on a visit and was so impressed, she began donating new dresses worth thousands of dollars. Cook says they mark them at 90% off original prices.
"Women are getting wedding dresses, dresses for galas. Girls are coming to get prom dresses. It helps them stretch their dollars, but they're helping us at the same time."
All the work is done by volunteers. And between the stacks of donations, running the register and tending to customers, there's a lot of work to do. This is not the type of discount resale shop where clothes are thrown out on racks at random or shoes end up in bins. Everything is carefully handled and arranged. The design of the shop shows obvious care and effort and creativity, much of which Cook attributes to the army of youthful volunteers who keep the store going -- and keep costs low.
So far, Cook says, they've given almost $30,000.
Most of the money goes to Immerse's Overcomers Center on Asher Avenue, where homeless teenagers can have meals, do laundry and get counseling. Some of those teenagers end up in the residential program, where they have a place to stay and get help learning job skills.
Some of the money also goes to help teenage mothers at Young Lives. Live Thankfully money sponsors young women to go to a special camp where they learn parenting skills, hopefully keeping more children from entering the foster care system.
The need isn't just financial and the benefits aren't only for the young people at Immerse Arkansas and Young Lives.
The store itself is a ministry of a different kind.
Some teenagers from the two programs end up working as volunteers in the store to get job experience. They're also given a few clothes to help get them started.
"Most of them have a plastic bag with one or two" pieces of clothing in it, Cook explains.
At the same time, the store also has teenage volunteers from area high schools such as Central High School, Mount St. Mary and Little Rock Christian, looking to fill their volunteer hour requirements.
"They learn from each other," Cook says. "I try to pair them together."
Recently, she teamed up an Immerse teenager named Regina with a girl from Little Rock Christian.
"They worked together on projects like straightening the clothes and hanging up the new clothes. They worked side by side. That might be the only experience that they'd have meeting someone like that, who's so different from them."
In addition to school-led volunteer efforts, Live Thankfully also gets volunteers through the National Charity League, which Arkansas joined last year. Through the program, mothers and daughters sign up to do volunteer work for one of the sponsored philanthropies. Live Thankfully is one of six sponsored philanthropies in Arkansas and their volunteers work about 10-15 hours a week.
The mission even extends to the customers. In the front room, there's a cozy setup with a couch, chairs and coffee table. It's not unusual for people to come, sit down and chat for a good part of the day.
The couch is actually referred to as the ministry couch. Cook remembers one woman who came in recently and stayed for four hours.
"She just needed to feel the love. She needed to be cared for. She loved hearing our stories about who we're helping. She wanted to be a part of something bigger than herself."
The woman ended up buying some outfits and donating other things she had brought.
While most don't stay as long as this particular customer, Cook says women come in all the time for prayers and support in tough times.
"They come in and this is a breath of fresh air. I always tell the volunteers we lead with love and people come first. There's always another job to do but we set it down and work with people first."
As with the inaugural garage sale, much of their advertising is through word of mouth, though now they have a Web page as well as Facebook and Instagram. Donors and shoppers can get on mailing lists for coupons and updates on sales, specials and what the missions are up to.
Cook says, "We want to invite the community to Live Thankfully with us."
Live Thankfully is at 10020 N. Rodney Parham Road, Suites 3 and 4, Little Rock. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Call (615) 720-8475 or visit livethankfullylr.com.
High Profile on 06/30/2019