When Emily Beveridge began holding Cat’s Pajamas, a yearly clothing exchange fundraiser for ARTS/West, the event only lasted a day. Eight years later, the event usually lasts several days at a time and draws approximately 75 volunteers.
Beveridge, events coordinator for ARTS/West and head organizer of Cat’s Pajamas, chose to hold the event twice this year — once at its usual time in the spring and again this week, lasting until Saturday.
“It is a way for people to obtain clothing at a very low cost in a (nonjudgmental) atmosphere,” she said. “I wanted to make it ... like a celebration, because there is still a stigma around people who get used clothes.”
The event, which began in 2008, is the largest fundraiser ARTS/West holds each year and attracts visitors from Lancaster and Columbus. In the spring, the event brought in $4,000.
“I’m hoping (the money we bring in) is around the same if not around what we were getting about two years ago, which I mean is about $2,000-3,000,” Chelsa Peterson Morahan, full-time program specialist at ARTS/West, said. “And it all helps us put on things like Ratha Con, our pop-culture convention, and the Athens Area Fiber Faire.”
Beveridge said Cat’s Pajamas works to unite members of the community and curb environmental waste by preventing clothes from being thrown out. As of Sunday, approximately 120 bags of clothes had been donated since the event began Thursday, and more are expected to arrive this week.
“I try to buy all of my stuff used if possible, so when I first moved here, the Cat’s Pajamas really beefed up my wardrobe,” Jessica Minor-Baetens, a first-year volunteer said.
Community members who take donations to ARTS/West by Nov. 3 are given a ticket that allows them to take any clothing during the exchange. Community members can join for a year for $30, and students for $20. Thursday and Friday entry is $15 and Saturday entry is $10.
Morahan said one year, a community member visited the event two weeks after losing all her clothes in a house fire.
“She had been borrowing friends’ clothes but she never really felt whole again until she came to Cat’s Pajamas and got a full, new wardrobe that was just hers,” she said.
