Peggy Rice and Sue Mackenzie never know what to expect when they unlock the door to the Center’s clothing room. It may be piled halfway to the ceiling with bulging bags of donations that have come in since last week. They may find a note, asking them to pull together outfits for children who lost everything in a fire. They may find that they are not alone.

     No matter what awaits them in this far corner of the Center’s basement, the so-called “Closet Queens” are up to the task. They laugh about the day that renovations going on upstairs caused part of the clothing room ceiling to fall on Sue’s head.

    “We called her ‘Chicken Little,’” says Peggy, who lives in Overland Park.

    They even laugh about the mice that used to frequent the clothing room before a team of volunteers from GE Insurance Solutions pulled out old fixtures and put in new shelving.

     “We could hear them skittering around,” says Sue, of Leawood. Once, when she reached into a box, a mouse ran across her hand.

     “We still to this day haven’t opened that box again!” Peggy says.

     The “Queens” spend every Tuesday unpacking, sorting and neatly folding donated clothing.

     “I feel bad for them sometimes when they get here and find the room piled full of bags,” says Kim Davis, director of social work, “but they just say, ‘That’s job security!’ They save us a ton of time by doing all the sorting and sizing. We can find something a kid needs very quickly.”

     Peggy and Sue often find notes from staff when they arrive, asking them to pull clothing for particular children.

     “They told us that this baby has come (to the Center) in the same outfit for four days in a row,” says Peggy, waving a note. “We’ll be giving her everything.”

     And, with that, they set to work - personal shoppers for the children of Operation Breakthrough.

     “Isn’t that cute?” Sue says, holding up an outfit embroidered with little elephants. She claps her hands with excitement. “This is our favorite thing – picking out nice, new, clean clothes for someone who needs them.”

     They pull fresh outfits for children who have come to the Center dirty, from homes without utilities. They put together whole layettes for newborns who’ve come home from the hospital with nothing but the diapers they’re wearing. They piece together new wardrobes for families who have had to escape overnight to a battered women’s shelter, leaving everything behind. They pull clothes for little girls who literally hug their new outfits to their chests.

     “We go home and tell our husbands these stories with tears in our eyes,” says Peggy.

     “It’s been good for us.”