Lamb Shoppe helps foster children through volunteers

The Lamb Shoppe welcomes everyone to shop with Marilyn Peasinger, Judy Roub and Cyndi Stowe.

Founded in 1999, The Lamb Shoppe thrift store still has some of the original volunteers working to benefit foster children.

Housed in what was once part of a bank building, Manager Cyndi Stowe said the building was cut in half and moved from Melbourne to 1765 South Patrick Drive in Indian Harbour Beach.

The thrift store raises funds for the Haven for Children foster care centers.

The upscale but reasonably priced thrift store has more than 60 volunteers, some of whom have their husband’s help. The men “are a really big help because it is a lot of manual labor involved.” Stowe said.

Some of The Lamb Shoppe volunteers have been helping in the thrift store since it started in 1999.

The Lamb Shoppe funds the Haven for Children foster homes, with 100% of the proceeds going to the organization, a beachside residential foster care model with three homes in undisclosed locations for children who have experienced abuse and neglect. The children are in mainstream schools with a few exceptions. Their average age is 12.

Each home sleeps up to 11 children, including some sibling groups. While these children await a forever home, the Haven for Children cares for them with a 24-hour staff that treats them like family, takes them to school, therapy appointments and field trips.

“Our kids are the kids that traditionally don’t make it in family foster care. They need a higher level of resources that we can provide,” Stowe said.

A silent auction display has antique jewelry in a locked cabinet awaiting bids. Children’s clothing is a hot seller. They display the items cottage core style in a series of small rooms. Items are displayed as in small specialty stores — a room of puzzles and toys, a room of fine dishware, a bridal display. Women’s clothes are sorted by size and style, many with new tags. They take everything except men’s clothing and large electronics.

Donations can be made 24 hours a day in an area near a second building that houses furniture and other large items and some seasonal storage of items.

“In the next few weeks, we are pulling all the Halloween items out and this building is going to be a haunted cottage. Then, at Christmas, we get rid of almost all of our things. We donate them usually to a church or something and then it’s all hands on deck. We bring all the Christmas out and it becomes big Chaos Corners. The whole front building has Christmas trees everywhere. It’s just a really fun thing and the community really embraces these events that we do.” Stowe said.

Among the volunteers are past store managers Marilyn Peasinger and Judy Roub, who were among the Junior League members who founded the guild that created the Lamb Shoppe. “We asked if anyone knew about thrift stores. Two ladies from Tampa did. They were here about a year, and they did a good job. They gave us all this information because we didn’t know anything.” Roub said.

Said Peasinger: “The first guild meeting was at my house. They had all babies back then, the foster care system has changed a lot. There was so much talk about babies. Cocaine babies. And that’s what we used volunteers for, me because they needed people to hold the babies. Chicken Soup Loving, they called it. That’s why we called the thrift store The Lamb Shopppe, and it was the baby lambs. You could go in there and see five or six people rocking a baby and most of the babies were addicted.”

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