EAGAN, Minn. — It's been an overwhelming, unprecedented week at Kaitlyn's Kloset.
"We've never had this much clothing before... ever," said founder Kaitlyn Stock. "It's really exciting to see."
Stock says her heart is now as full as the shelves of her nonprofit, which offers families in need the opportunity to shop for gently used children's clothing and other necessities free of charge.
It's a drastic turnaround from last week, when Stock had never seen the shelves so empty. She spoke to KARE 11 after making the difficult decision to close her doors and focus on donations in the face of unsustainable demand.
"We previously have run about a one-to-one client to donor ratio, and now it's more a five to one client to donor ratio," Stock said. "That's what our last month's numbers looked like."
Kaitlyn says the response to that story was ten-fold.
"I could not finish watching the segment on TV, before my phone was ringing," she said. "It was that quick. People were not even finished watching the story and they were already calling, asking how they can help."
Those calls quickly turned into carloads of donations when Kaitlyn's Kloset opened for it's first donation drive in Eagan this weekend.
"Look at all of this," Stock said, pointing to bags of donations that had yet to be sorted. "This was from just three hours on Saturday. When I was putting through the numbers of the stuff that we've already inventoried, which doesn't count any of this, it's as much as we took in in all of January and all of February of this year. Two months worth of donations.
In terms of monetary donations, we've gotten more in the last five days than we've gotten in 2023 altogether."
With numbers like that, it didn't take long for that single clothing drive briefly overwhelmed Kaitlyn's team of 11 volunteers.
"It's a full family thing at this point," said Kaitlyn Stock. "We're calling on my husband, my mom, my dad, my sister. We're taking in new volunteers, anybody who is willing to come and help and get this stuff ready for families."
Kaitlyn's mother, Kristen Stock, says that's what the family did a decade ago, when Kaitlyn, then just 13 year's old, had a desire to help families in need that quickly overwhelmed the basement of their Farmington home.
"This is a good problem to have," said Kristen Stock, Kaitlyn's mother. "My motto for Kaitlyn is always, we'll figure it out."
Now, with four more big donation drives ahead this week - beginning at noon on Wednesday - Kristen and Kaitlyn promise they'll be ready to take in even more.
Kaitlyn Stock: "We will be ready, and we know people are coming. On Saturday, we even had some of our families who are shoppers come in and donate."
Erdahl: "Wait, so you even had families that come in and shop, come in and donate?"
Kaitlyn: "Yeah, we actually have about a 90% return rate on donations, so about 90% of our clients also donate something back. That's my favorite part about it because it shows that this is a village and a family and a community here. Overflowing does not cut it. Not at all."
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