The Mustard Seed Boutique is a small thrift store set among some new and some decaying buildings in Frayser. But it presents itself like an upscale shop.
Mostly gently used merchandise is arranged with flair, and there are upholstered chairs, scented candles, even a babbling "waterfall" filling a corner. Often, people serve coffee and doughnuts there.
Barbara Bradley/The Commercial Appeal
Bonita Whitfield helps plant seeds of hope at The Mustard Seed Boutique, which sells donated merchandise.
All this invites you to linger because the owners are not just selling clothes and furniture. They're helping people, most of them struggling mothers who may also be dealing with domestic violence. Some come by appointment, and some come off the street.
The Mustard Seed, which opened about three months ago, is a project of The Living Legacy Inc., a faith-based nonprofit agency founded by six people employed in the mental health field.
They began by delivering food boxes to seniors and people whose names they were given, said Bonita Whitfield, executive director of the agency, headquartered in Clark Tower. But people needed so much more.
In 2004, they formed an agency that now has about 20 people who volunteer part time; these include licensed alcohol and drug counselors, psychological examiners and registered nurses.
"When people think of the homeless, they don't think it's the middle class or the working population," said Dr. Selena Smith, also a founder. "But often it's single mothers working two jobs who can't make ends meet."
Smith is a former psychiatric therapist at an Olive Branch hospital. Whitfield is a former counselor at an Oxford hospital that serves people with intellectual disabilities.
Smith said the agency charges fees on a sliding scale based on income, but no one is turned away for inability to pay.
Meanwhile, people have made donations through the website theliving-legacy.com, and one Memphian donated the little building, a former beauty shop. It inspired the idea to create a shop to sell donated merchandise and use the funds to support their services.
"Some of the women and children we assist come to us with just the clothes on their back and no money, so we have to provide everything they need," said Whitfield. If the agency can keep a woman out of a troubled home for 24 to 48 hours, she is more likely not to go back and to begin to transition to a better life, she said.
Women and men who come for help are assessed and counseled, and some will get clothes from the shop, toiletries and other aid.
For regular shoppers, most clothes there are $5 to $10. On one day recently, you could get a rust-colored, safari-style cotton dress from The Gap or a clingy London Times print dress for $5 each. Big cuff-like turquoise bracelets were $20 each. A frilly, big-brimmed hat by New York Model, dangling an original tag of $119, was $15.
Men's and children's clothes are sold, as well as every kind of home furnishing, scented soy candles that never get hot so you can use them as body oil, and Ella and Eva natural hair and body products.
However, the best thing you find there might not be for sale.
"The Bible says if you have the faith of a mustard seed, God will step in and do miraculous things," said Whitfield, looking out at the shop in the donated building, packed with donated goods and staffed by volunteers to support an agency where no one is turned away.
The Mustard Seed Boutique at 2683 N. Watkins is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fashion editor Barbara Bradley can be reached at 529-2370.
