Agency Is Well-Suited to Its Task : Nonprofit Firm Provides Donated Business Attire to Needy Job Seekers

About 10,000 needy job candidates in search of decent clothes to wear to interviews and to work in Southern California have gotten a lift: nearly 50,000 suits, dresses, ties and shoes provided by a local nonprofit agency.

But as the 4-year-old organization enters a new era, with the semi-retirement of its founder and the hiring of its first full-time director, Clothes the Deal expects the need for its services only to increase as welfare-to-work initiatives unfold over the next few years.

Clothes the Deal’s mission is to unite jobless, homeless and other struggling people with the mountains of business clothing that go unworn in Los Angeles.

The program was inspired by a Chicago-based clothes-recycling program that Clothes the Deal founder Ann Gusiff read about in Working Woman magazine. Gusiff began her own program in 1995, building her inventory mostly by word-of-mouth.

“I started collecting clothing, with no grandiose ideas for starting a nonprofit,” said Gusiff, 34, who now lives in La Canada.

Then a graduate student at UCLA’s Anderson School, Gusiff borrowed $4,500 using her credit cards for seed money and ran the operation out of her Pasadena garage. That first year, she dispersed about 4,000 items of clothing to about 800 recipients.

“It struck a nerve,” she said of her goal of providing business clothes to needy job seekers. “Other people felt the same way.”

After completing her master’s degree in business, Gusiff stayed with the fledgling charity rather than chasing the high-level corporate career she had been groomed for.

The program now operates out of a downtown Los Angeles office and a Downey warehouse, where thousands of items are processed for distribution to about 60 agencies and programs. Gusiff expects demand to grow as welfare reform pushes an estimated 150,000 Los Angeles County welfare recipients into the job market in the next few years.

One clothing recipient is Jyretha Darden, recently outfitted by Clothes the Deal when she lived in a Santa Monica homeless shelter. Newly employed after two years of joblessness, she has since moved into her own home.

“I selected an orange jacket with skirt and slacks--a very pretty orange,” Darden said. She wore her new threads on her first day as a hostess for an estate liquidator, one of three part-time jobs she snared on the same day in March.

“Initially, they want to see how well-manicured you are,” said Darden. “They really look at you from head to toe. If your clothes look clean, well-pressed, it gives them the idea you are definitely interested in getting a job.”

She’d get no argument from David Cardona, human resources director at Omni Plastics Inc. in Santa Fe Springs. The plastic-injection-molding firm has hired about 30 people through Greater Avenues for Independence, or GAIN, L.A. County’s principal welfare-to-work program. Learning to dress appropriately is a key part of GAIN’s job-readiness training for its clients, most of whom are single mothers with limited work experience and education.

“There’s a big difference between someone wearing Levi’s and a T-shirt and someone serious about impressing an employer and obtaining a job,” said Cardona, who has placed GAIN applicants in clerical, technical and light-industrial jobs.

Clothes the Deal implores potential donors to give their business apparel the “best second life possible,” a pitch that appeals to people reluctant to give their finest clothes to charities running resale shops because they aren’t sure where the garments will end up.

Clothes the Deal picks up donations from designated drop-off points, corporate clothing drives and clothing retailers and manufacturers. Items must be clean, pressed and on hangers before they can be distributed at 57 sites in the Los Angeles area, representing dozens of social service agencies and programs, including GAIN. (Clothes the Deal can be reached at [213] 688-1020.)

A similar organization, Dress-4-Success, started by Janet Lavender, also operates in the Los Angeles area and has outfitted about 5,000 clients since 1996. Other programs have popped up in cities across the country.

Job hunter Darden received help and clothing through Chrysalis, a nonprofit agency that helps people find jobs and become self-sufficient. At its Santa Monica location, larger sizes, especially in men’s clothing, are in short supply.

“I could wait years to get a certain size [donated],” said program assistant Johnny Vinton. Instead, he calls Clothes the Deal and requests needed sizes to fill gaps in his inventory.

If an applicant lands a job, he or she can go back to the Chrysalis closet and pick four more ensembles.

A lack of appropriate attire is a major obstacle welfare-to-work clients face, along with finding good child care, preparing a resume and obtaining transportation, said Vivian Cardona-Gonzalez, a senior job developer with the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

GAIN runs a boutique in a small Downey shopping center that is filled with Clothes the Deal outfits. “We were working at the concept but didn’t really know how to get the clothes,” said Cardona-Gonzalez. Now that the supply is dependable, clients can come in and have something attractive to choose from.

One recent morning at the boutique, Sheila Milton donned a turquoise suit as she prepared for a job interview. “When I first started, I found I wasn’t getting the job because I wasn’t dressing appropriately,” said Milton, who was looking for clerical work.

Before she attended her work readiness program, she would wear casual attire to interviews, maybe even jeans. “I learned that your appearance really affects what you get,” she said.

Clothes the Deal is still Gusiff’s baby, but she recently stepped away from day-to-day operations to raise another with husband John their daughter Christiana. She remains active as chairwoman of the executive board, but she has cut her commitment to about 10 to 15 hours a week and is no longer drawing her $30,000-a-year salary.

Clothes the Deal recently hired its first full-time executive director with the help of a two-year, $100,000 grant from the Weingart Foundation.

The new leader is Ralph Serpico, who formerly worked in banking. This spring he has been busy lining up clothing drives at businesses and schools, including Bankers Trust, Farmers Insurance and Loyola Marymount University.

As Gusiff sees it, society is getting a bargain.

“We figure it costs $25 a person to completely outfit them,” Gusiff said. “It’s a really cost-effective way to collect clothing and get it to people who need it most.”