The Benevolent Big Box - Christianity Today

A charter school in North Lawndale, Chicago, serves 300 underprivileged students from fifth to eighth grade, many of whom are unable to provide their own school supplies. So the school turns to a unique ministry. The Storehouse, run by World Vision, is a big-box retailer for those who can’t afford big-box prices.

“One of the first gifts we received [from the Storehouse] was 40 backpacks with school supplies, pencils, pens, and loose-leaf paper,” says Jim O’Connor, principal of KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Ascend Charter School. “Backpacks went to kids who had been doing a good job with their behavior. Since then, we’ve received everything from yarn to whiteboards.”

The charter school also runs a store where students may buy Storehouse-donated products with “KIPP dollars,” which are earned for good behavior and academic effort. “The Storehouse,” says O’Connor, “has provided our students and teachers with classroom supplies that are essential for student learning.”

In the early ’90s, Perry Bigelow, a major Chicago-area homebuilder, and a handful of other businessmen wanted to provide building supplies to local churches and ministries. “They realized that pastors were responsible for the social development in the city,” says Michael Mantel, senior director of World Vision Chicago. “If you help a church rehabilitate its facility, then you can help the church rehabilitate its community.” Inspired by a ministry that builds homes for pastors, the group of homebuilders determined to “build something that will keep building.”

In 1995, the Storehouse opened as a home-improvement outlet for churches, ministries, and needy individuals. But putting up walls turned out to be easier than starting a ministry. “We made two mistakes,” says Mantel. “One, we assumed we could get building materials—but World Vision had no contacts in that arena. Two, we assumed that people would want the materials. But the community leaders were so used to getting ripped off, they thought the stuff was ‘hot.'”

Their first location looked nothing like a big-box store, either. It was a dark warehouse in which they sold wallpaper, sinks, and cabinet doors—that was it. There was no room for more. But things began to change when a Canadian stockbroker, Craig McKay, began appealing to major home-supply companies to donate materials. Meanwhile, volunteer Kim Lee Franklin promoted the project with local churches. Suddenly, Storehouse had donors like Kohler and Armstrong providing materials and local churches providing customers.

Today, the Chicago Storehouse has the friendly cashiers, high ceiling, and lengthy aisles of any Home Depot or Lowe’s. Unlike the average home-improvement store, though, Storehouse lines its aisles with colorful World Vision posters, reminding visitors of needy children around the world.

The Storehouse connects companies, business leaders, and suburban churches to inner-city charities and churches. World Vision provides the logistics to stock each storehouse with volunteers, staff, and building materials. Customers come to the Storehouse through member churches and charities. Through member fees or direct purchase, they buy sinks, lumber, paint, and other building materials at a 15 to 20 percent discount.

From Los Angeles, California, to Appalachia, West Virginia, people near Storehouse’s 11 current locations across the United States now have access to first-rate home-building products and school resources. In 2006 alone, Storehouse served more than 1.6 million people.

Learning to Work

Clothes, mattresses, blankets, and barrettes are now as much a part of the program as sinks, windows, and paint. “We even received flatware from United Airlines after 9/11, because they had to get rid of the sharp utensils,” Mantel says.

Just six years after its founding, Storehouse moved into the black financially. It now has more than 300 corporations contributing $6 million worth of building and other materials annually, and 2,500 volunteers, in addition to the help supplied by churches and ministries.

Victory Outreach in San Dimas, California, is one Storehouse customer. Like many other Storehouse partners, Victory Outreach uses the materials both for its own needs and to assist those the ministry serves. An international church and relocation ministry, it works with former convicts and “the down-and-outer, the lost, the unlovable,” says Pastor Ramon Castro. Victory Outreach also builds local churches in hurting communities, one of which Castro leads, along with a rehabilitation center, on Chicago’s South Side. He has seen results of the ministry first-hand: His own home is a rehabilitation home. A typical Storehouse shopper, Castro and the ministry he leads depend on supplies they regularly pick up at the store. Castro has worked in ministry for 22 years and has been with Storehouse since its inception. “A lot of our guys who go to our rehab homes, they never worked,” Castro says, “so we use Christian places like this to learn how to work.”

Storehouse provides more than home-building materials to Victory Outreach. “The products they give us for the residents are worth a lot of money: toothbrushes, blankets, clothes,” Castro says. “That alone has been a tremendous blessing.” Storehouse materials are also used for ministry buildings, providing new windows, floors, and paint.

While Victory Outreach has been with Storehouse since the beginning, the newest Storehouse in Picayune, Mississippi, is just beginning its work with survivors of Hurricane Katrina. The Dallas Storehouse was the original distribution center for World Vision relief to Hurricane Katrina refugees. “Immediately, when the levees broke … our partners, who are churches and nonprofits, started serving families,” says Phyllis Freeman, World Vision’s interim director of disaster response. “We opened the Storehouse in Picayune because we needed a location that was strategically close to the Mississippi coastline as well as New Orleans.”

The Picayune Storehouse launched on May 25, 2005, with a 43,000-square-foot building. Partner organizations, including the National Hockey League and Garth Brooks’s Teammates for Kids Foundation, contributed to Hurricane Katrina relief and were part of the ceremonies. “The response has been a wonderful blessing,” says Freeman. “But people are still struggling to rebuild; families are still struggling to get home.”

In August 2006, Storehouse distributed 8,200 backpacks stuffed with school supplies to Gulf Coast–area children.

The Wise Guys

The Storehouse’s expansion over the years is due, in large part, to the business partners who helped launch the ministry in the first place—a group called the “Wise Guys.”

Nicknamed for their business acumen and desire to serve the poor, the Wise Guys helped develop Storehouse’s self-sustaining model. For Dave Jackson, the group has become a means of using his gifts for Christ. “There’s a certain dignity that comes from buying new things,” he says.

As Pastor Ramon Castro says, “We want people to know that they’re impacting people’s lives. … I know for my church, for my ministry, it’s been a real blessing.”

Elisa Weeks, a former CT news intern, is a senior at Wheaton College.