Sharing Joy: How Donations to CLT Empower Change

What happens when you donate used sports and outdoors equipment to Clothes Less Traveled? Does it really make a difference in other people’s lives?

Let’s set the stage with the raw feelings of a particular sport - kayaking.

The sound of water roaring fills your ears. The spray cools your face as you navigate the rocky river rapids. Joy fills your senses as every part of your body, mind, and spirit works in unison with nature. Here you are free from worry about your past or your future. You are alive at this moment.

Combat Paddlers, a support group of veterans helping veterans, use this joyful experience of kayaking to support recently returned military servicemen and women. In the same way you cannot switch the direction in which a river flows, kayakers learn to face the challenge of healing through their pain instead of against it.

Founder Scotty Mincey said, “We are friends with kayaks, and we want butts in boats. Our main goal is to get [veterans] back to living through kayaking.” Scotty emphasized that Combat Paddlers are truly friends and family instead of councilors and therapists because nothing inspires growth the same way a close friendship does.

Now recognized by Veterans Affairs, Combat Paddlers offers vets a view of that acceptance of change through kayaking, hiking, and working out in the community. They seek out the needs of vets and their families in Chattanooga and Nashville and rise to meet those needs. Those who have found peace and renewed purpose through the Combat Paddlers then continue in the group as leaders, sharing that experience of nature with others.

However, accomplishing this expanse of outdoor sports and community work requires equipment - expensive equipment. One day while searching for deals online, Scotty scrolled through a website about a thrift store in Georgia called Clothes Less Traveled. CLT offered a luxury Werner carbon fiber paddle for sale at a fraction of its $430 value. Even including the nearly 3-hour drive, the low price made the trip for this valuable equipment entirely worth it.

Upon arrival, he was met with smiling faces as soon as he entered the store. Frank, a CLT volunteer and board member, led him back to see the kayaking paddle. Frank’s friendly nature led to laughter and conversation about cars, life, and everything in between. The love and care Clothes Less Traveled had for its customers moved Scotty.

“It means the world to have this type of equipment,” he said. The paddles would be used to “bring back pride to veterans.”

Thanks to the generous donations from people like you, Clothes Less Traveled impacts great organizations like Combat Paddlers every day. Donate today and share joy by uplifting your community.

“Anything we do, we do to better our community,” says Scotty. Since the Combat Paddlers work with vets in Tennessee feeding homeless soldiers, cleaning military gravesites, repairing homes, and supporting widows, Scotty was glad to know the money from his purchase would be invested back into local charities and scholarships funds.

CLT is grateful for the opportunity to share a smile, a story, and so much more with our new friend Scotty Mincey.

Visit their Facebook Group to learn more about Combat Paddlers. 

If you want to help others by donating to CLT, you can find information on our donate page.