A banner reading “Future Home” sways underneath the metal overhang of the industrial building on the corner of Second Street and Patterson Drive.
Tufts of brown grass grow through cracks in the uneven parking lot. There are walls to be torn down, windows to be added and decades of donated clothing to be relocated from the current building to this one.
There is a long road ahead for My Sister’s Closet. A $2.1 million road. But the women behind the business are resolute.
Almost three decades ago, Sandy Keller, Founder and Executive Director of My Sister’s Closet, was writing resumes for free and lending professional wear out of her own closet to women in Bloomington living in transitional housing that came to her looking for work.
“I was seeing them and feeling like they really didn’t have any kind of a chance of getting hired by anyone seriously into a better job beyond what they were doing in fast food temporary positions or cleaning jobs,” Keller said.
A couple of years later, in March 1998, she had an idea after watching a “60 Minutes” segment on Dress for Success, a national non-profit that aims to prepare women to enter the work force. Keller decided to compile a rack of suits to lend to women before interviews.
She put together a clothing drive at the farmer’s market, hoping to receive a handful of donated suits to fill the rack she would keep at her office. At the time, she was the founder and CEO of The Absolute Secretary and Bloomington Voice Mail.
“We did the clothing drive to help us find enough suits to put on a four-foot rack,” Keller said. “We thought people were going to show up, maybe a couple of people and we'd be lucky if we got 10, 15 suits. Instead, we ended up with thousands of pieces of clothing. It was never supposed to happen.”
What was intended to be a four-month project turned into Keller renting their first space across from Bloomington city hall and actively running a resale boutique. She named it My Sister’s Closet.
It operates under a self-funded business model. There are 10 women on the executive board. Revenue from customer sales pays for operating costs.
The store is first and foremost a recovery program for at-risk women. Shelters in Monroe County give women vouchers they can redeem at My Sister’s Closet to receive hygiene products, resume and interview strategies and, of course, an outfit to wear to the interview.
If a woman gets the job, she can come back to the store and receive five free new outfits for her first full week of work.
“Somebody’s got to step up,” Keller said. “Somebody’s got to do something. Somebody’s got to find the resources to make sure that these women don’t fall through the cracks, because they do, then their kids do and their grandchildren do, and it becomes a generational thing that you can almost never recover from, and in a lot of cases, families don’t.”
Now, over 27 years later, Keller says the first thing My Sister’s Closet seeks to do is change how its at-risk clients view themselves and how potential employers perceive them.
The business has been looking for a new building since 2016 due to the impending Monroe Convention Center renovation, Keller said. Located at 302 S. College Ave., the convention center will be expanded by nearly 60,000 square feet. Keller was renewing My Sister’s Closet’s lease one year at a time until the convention center plans were approved in early March of this year.
On May 29, 2025, My Sister’s Closet signed the lease for the new building and took out an $860,000 loan. The next day, the Herald Times reported Monroe County would not extend the lease on their current building, along with other tenants south of the convention center, citing maintenance costs.
Keller said she found herself in a “do or die” situation after she saw the bold letters announcing the end of her lease and a photo of My Sister’s Closet.
“If they decide to kick us out by June, and we don’t have the renovations for this building done, then this service that we provide to the most vulnerable in our community will go into hiatus for a while,” Keller said. “We will let go of our employees. We will not have a business model to fund the organization, and we will not be helping women in that time.”
Keller worries if that happens, it will take years for My Sister’s Closet to get back on its feet again.
The estimated total cost of the relocation, including the move, expansion and renovation is $2.1 million.
My Sister’s Closet Vice President and Director of Development Marci Hibbard said the store’s 4,400 square foot expansion onto the new building is where the e-commerce department, current season storage and off-site storage will be located.
“We want to get started,” Hibbard said. "We just need the community’s help to fund it. Help us fund it so we can get going, and it’s going to be beautiful when it’s done.”
“And not just for the clients, for all women,” Keller added.
That’s why the store is called My Sister’s Closet, Keller said. It’s about the power of women uniting because they care about the well-being of complete strangers, about another woman in their community.
Two weeks ago, Keller said, a woman came into the shop who had been coming in by herself for years. Keller noticed something seemed wrong that day and asked how she was doing.
The woman told Keller that her sister had just been hit by a car and died. She told her she didn’t know where else to go besides My Sister’s Closet because she didn’t have anybody else to talk to.
“And I thought, oh my God, this is her community,” Keller said.
Keller believes there are many women like that customer. Women that come to the shop to find respite from the problems in their lives. Women that come to find community.
It’s women like that she worries about when thinking of the money that needs to be raised in less than a year.
“We need the power of one woman to become the power of 1,000 women,” Keller said.
Last year, My Sister’s Closet helped 200 women find jobs. The Relocation Fund, used to aid moving costs and renovation efforts, currently stands at $245,000, leaving roughly $1.8 million left to be raised before June 2026. Donations can be made via the store website.
CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to clarify that Monroe County did not extend My Sister’s Closet’s lease because of maintenance costs.
