Local businesses form strong connection with CCHO

Christian Children’s Home of Ohio works to help neglected and abused children heal and recover, and two local businesses have come alongside CCHO to make its job less burdensome. The Caring Closet and Mission Thrift have helped CCHO in both tangible and emotional ways.

In November 2020, The Caring Closet opened in Wooster with the goal of offering free clothing to women who were leaving the OneEighty Domestic Violence Shelter. Since then it has changed locations several times and expanded its services to include not only women, but also children.

Now someone is in the process of purchasing the old Buchanan Place at the Barn Restaurant in Smithville for The Caring Closet to use as a main location. The historic home will be easier and cheaper to staff and run.

“Our Destinations fundraiser brought in over $40,000, and the outpouring of community support and offers to help have been phenomenal. We are so excited,” said Maralee Martin, founder and executive director of The Caring Closet. “It will be a home for those we serve to come to, and it is full of closets. The charm and ambience will be wonderful. We feel very blessed for this awesome gift.”

The connection between The Caring Closet and CCHO began in early 2021 after Martin reached out to Shawn Yambor of CCHO. “I have always known about CCHO and wanted to find a way to pour into the kids there,” Martin said.

In the 2022-23 school year, Ohio had 16,519 students in foster care, according to the Ohio Department of Education’s website, up from 16,154 in 2018. Most of these children were removed from their home because of abuse, neglect, and/or alcohol and drug use by their guardians.

CCHO’s mission is to be a safe and stable environment where abused, neglected and traumatized children find healing, discover hope and experience unconditional love.

“The Caring Closet is a very solid and generous partner to CCHO and puts a lot of resources behind supporting our residential program,” Yambor said, noting The Caring Closet has hosted events for CCHO clients including personalized boutique shopping visits, tea parties, cookouts, and spa and salon experiences. “They have assisted us in fundraising for a large trampoline on campus and video game systems for the kids as well.

“They also provide us with essential new and used items that are donated to The Caring Closet so our kids have everything they need to feel cared for in our program.”

Another local business that supports CCHO is Mission Thrift, whose first store opened in 2016 in Orrville. Since then it opened a store in 2020 on 2149 Portage Road in Wooster, one in Berlin and one in Sarasota, Florida that will open soon.

Hanging on the wall of its Wooster location is a quote from John F. Kennedy that exemplifies how the store hopes to support kids: “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”

Mission Thrift offers a place the community can donate to, shop at and volunteer to make an investment in the next generation.

The Mission Thrift goal is to take the donations from the community and raise funds for organizations working with at-risk children who provide housing, food, clothes, tutoring, mentoring and other resources.

“We were looking for organizations local to Wooster that worked with at-risk kids that we could partner with, and CCHO was a perfect fit,” said Jeremy Shantz, the store manager at Mission Thrift. “We have been overwhelmed with how Wooster residents have welcomed and supported our store from day one.”

Yambor said Mission Thrift is a consistent supporter of CCHO. “They have sponsored our Heart for the Home events and our Great Grill Off events,” he said. “They assisted us in constructing beehives as we utilized the CCHO campus to harvest honey and helped us install a very nice disc golf course on the property that is currently utilized by our clients and staff.”

The Caring Closet will seek support to construct a building onsite that will house intake, sorting, processing and seasonal storage.

“We are still serving those we serve during the moves,” Martin said. “If you would like to donate monetarily or adopt a room by providing paint, outlets or outlet covers or if you have a company that does painting, gutters, woodworking, could donate some supplies, that would be awesome. We would like to restore this piece of history to the best of our ability and serve our community well from it.”

The CCHO store and the TCC Boutique will move during the month of January and be established by Feb. 1 at the new site. Suite D on Cleveland Road, the Donation Center, will stay at its present location until a new intake building is built.