A genuine rags-to-riches story - with a little fire thrown in

Deann Alsaker figured out how to make both a business and a charity with the shirt off your back.

She waits until you're done with it -- or your dress or shoes or bedding -- and collects them for her Recycled Wardrobes company in Lindstrom, Minn. Then she finds some way to reuse them.

Many of the high-quality clothes go for sale in her shop. That income supports Alsaker's charitable sidelines: giving clothing to people in crisis, here and through Minnesotans going on missions as far away as Mexico, Honduras, Romania and Africa.

Heavily worn clothing gets recycled, Alsaker said. A women's group tears some into hospital bandages. A junior high school sewing class in Forest Lake turns denim into lunch bags, then gives them to elementary school children, explaining that the environment benefits when people avoid throw-away bags. She just got a call from an animal rescue center, looking for low-cost rags as bedding.

"And I have the cutest pair of mittens on my wall, made by a local lady from a couple of shrunk wool sweaters," she said.

For all that, Alsaker was just named the 2006 recipient of the Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained Award by WomenVenture, a nonprofit business development and training agency in St. Paul.

WomenVenture chose Alsaker partly because her enterprise helps so many others, spokeswoman Anne Rodenberg said.

But the award also recognizes Alsaker's perseverance through her own adversity: a 2004 fire that destroyed her original shop and all its contents.

With a little help from WomenVenture, Alsaker is open for business again in a new boutique where she sells "gently used clothing, housewares and vintage items," she said. "WomenVenture was absolutely a stepping stone for the next phase of my business," Alsaker said.

"The fire was a real blow, but you learn what you need to do to keep going, and then you do it."

Alsaker got in the business of old clothes back in 1991. She and husband, Mike, worked at a local garbage hauler and saw so many good clothes go into the landfill. She decided that people were throwing them away because there was no convenient alternative. So first she organized a clothing drive in Lindstrom. Then she persuaded a local hauler to include clothing in the recyclables, which it gives her weekly.

"It's now part of curbside pickup, so it's as easy to recycle it as throw it away," she said. "Since then, I've just had a passion for keeping clothes out of the garbage stream, and provide excellent quality, low-cost clothes for others," Alsaker said. "I just try to fill the needs that come my way."

That garbage haul, individual donations, and pickups of discarded remains from thrift shops or church bazaars are her top sources of clothing.

The fire in 2004 meant starting over from scratch.

Alsaker found WomenVenture, and signed up for its Family Assets for Independence Minnesota (FAIM) program, which aims to help lower-wage Minnesotans build assets through help buying a home, going back to school, or starting or expanding a business.

For every dollar Alsaker saved -- up to $40 a month, for two years -- the government and an anonymous donor matched $3. She said she used the money for equipment, supplies and advertising for her new site, a building she is buying in Lindstrom.

FAIM also includes four financial literacy courses, with basics on budgeting and saving, and Alsaker had to write a business plan for Recycled Wardrobes.

"Just going through that process, and getting good, objective feedback, I was able to get on track and stay on track," she said.

Alsaker occasionally works as an aide to special-needs children in the Chisago Lakes school district, while she rebuilds her business and recoups her investment. And Recycled Wardrobes is a family affair, with her husband and five children all helping.

She looks for re-use converts everywhere.

"I still talk to people, even last month, who say they threw away their clothes because they didn't know where to bring them.

"Well, now they do," she said.

(Alsaker will officially receive her award at WomenVenture's annual conference Nov. 3 in Minneapolis.)

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