Mission and Vision

At Bubbe’s Closet, our mission is to provide a resource for clothing and small household items for Anne Arundel County families in transition or experiencing hardship. Our goal is to partner with local organizations that work directly with community members to help fill emergency requests, requests for urgently needed items, and to cosponsor targeted campaigns to help serve the needs of the community.

About Bubbe’s Closet

Bubbe’s Closet was founded to honor the spirit of service and giving of a very special Grandma (Bubbe). When I think of Grandma’s house I think of it as a place of shelter, kindness and love. Grandma always has what you need from an extra pair of socks to a hug when you really need one. Grandma is there to offer a helping hand in times of need and that’s what we at Bubbe’s closet would like to do for our community.

Bubbe’s closet will be a feeder for other local organizations. We will be working with community members to collect gently used clothing and small household items such as kitchen utensils, bedding, and linens. We aim to be able to serve those in transition, starting over or just experiencing a rough patch.

A Note From the Founder

The “Bubbe” who inspired Bubbe’s Closet is my mom, Irma Vanderpool. My mom had a passion for giving back to her community. She dedicated 32 years of service providing entertainment and activities to veterans in her role as Activities Director at the Chelsea Soldiers Home in Chelsea, MA. She also was very involved in her local community volunteering with organizations including the Friends of the Charlestown Library and donating to charitable organizations such as the ASPC, VFW and many others. In 2017, when she learned she was going to be a grandmother, a dream she had been holding onto for many years, she left her lifelong home in Massachusetts to be closer to her family in Annapolis, MD. She embraced her new community, continuing her spirit of giving and volunteerism through joining the New Annapolitans group, where she helped organize the events and through involvement with her local community’s Jewish group.

Her grandchildren, Emalyn and Dylan brought her such joy. I see so much of her in my daughter Emalyn. They are both artistic, have a love of animals, fashion, and shopping. Dylan’s antics and funny personality always had her laughing. My mom, in her retirement, learned to fully enjoy and embrace life and shared that with my children. Unfortunately, in the summer of 2020, her health took a turn for the worse and she left us in August.  I am grateful for the time she spent getting to know her grandchildren. Although they are both so young, they still speak of her often and remember her with so much love. As for me, I wanted to find a way to honor not only her memory but her lifelong commitment to service. Bubbe’s Closet, a nod to my mother’s enthusiasm for shopping and her own overflowing closet, allows me to carry on that commitment to service and community and to carry on her legacy.