Snoqualmie Valley Alliance’s Gift of Apparel clothing bank in downtown Snoqualmie will be closing its doors after losing the lease for its current location on Railroad Avenue.

Located between S.E. King Street and S.E. River Street, between the Snoqualmie Market and The Bindlestick, the Gift of Apparel clothing bank has operated in that location since 2009.

Jan Van Liew, director of the clothing bank, explained that their current location was given to them by the city of Snoqualmie, which owned the building, but is now selling it.

The clothing bank, which gives out approximately 1,000 items a week, began its operations 12 years ago, Van Liew said. She operated the bank out of her garage when the organization lost its first location, she said, then Mayor Matt Larson offered up the old city planning building, which was vacant at the time.

She said Larson had read about the bank losing their location in the Valley Record and reached out to the organization.

“In 2007, we lost our location and had to move, I ended up running the whole thing out of my garage in North Bend. On Saturday people would come to my house and I would roll out the racks and changing room,” she said. “That’s when Mayor Larson read that article and called me. This building is owned by the city of Snoqualmie, they are receiving some rent for the church upstairs, but the downstairs was donated to us for free.”

When they moved in to the building it was for sale and remained on the market until recently. Now that building has a buyer and the clothing bank must move out by Sept. 1 and find a new location.

“We’ve known that the building was for sale since the day we’ve moved in,” she said. “We had a big real estate recession in 2008 and were told ‘it’s yours but know that it’s for sale’.”

Van Liew is trying to look for a new location, but doesn’t have the budget. The clothing bank has operated purely on donations for more than a decade, she said. There is no budget to pay for rent in a new location.

“We are putting feelers out and looking at spaces but I don’t have a budget, I don’t have two to three grand a month for rent,” she said. “Unless someone donates, a benevolent benefactor, or a land owner who wants to donate.”

Despite losing the location, Van Liew said the clothing bank and the community they serve is very grateful to the city for providing them a place to run their program for the past seven years.

“We had clients come in and are thanking us for all the years we clothed their kids,” she said.

The clothing bank and Snoqualmie Valley Alliance will still hold their annual back-to-school shoe drive, through the end of the month.

Van Liew said the program, also in its 12th year, is about giving back to the children to help the most in the community.

“This year we have 240 kids that are going to get shoes,” she said. “This school year, this fall is going to be challenging, but we are still going to get them their shoes. I’ll do the shoe drive as long as I’m able, I’m happy to do that as it’s the highlight of my year.”

Shoe pick-ups can be made on Wednesdays, Aug. 24 and 31 at the Snoqualmie Valley Food Bank.

The food bank, clothing bank and other non-profits in the Valley all work to help serve the same community of people in the Valley, Van Liew said. The loss of the clothing bank will make their lives more difficult this fall.

“It’s going to stress our low income families that rely on donated charitable services for their daily lives,” she said. “If the food bank lost it’s location … it would be a big deal. The food bank feeds the same families that I’m clothing.

“All of us that do non-profit work in the Snoqualmie Valley, we serve the same clients.”