By Ken Mammarella
Contributing Writer

Babita Jagnanan says that she loves to talk trash, and she does more than just talk about it.

After almost 17 years working for someone else in secondhand textile recycling, she decided to go out on her own. In 2019 she founded the for-profit Phoenix Used Clothing, which “focuses on the reuse and recycling of textiles in support of local communities throughout Delaware,” according to https://phoenixusedclothing.online. In 2022, she founded Phoenix Family Resources, a nonprofit dedicated to “ensuring everyone has access to the resources they need to thrive.”

“When I started in the textile industry as an administrative assistant, I became fascinated with it from an environmental standpoint and how much waste is going into the landfill,” she said.

Her goal is to reduce that waste via textile recovery, reuse and recycling. For every 100 pieces of clothing sold each year in the US, 85 pieces – bought that year or before – are trashed, she said. 

Phoenix collects items that are often given free to the “displaced,” she explains in a video on the company website. That includes those living in encampments, those “getting out of transition housing to start over a new life, or to someone who just needs a new pair of sneakers.” 

Phoenix Family Resources moved in 2024 from Newark to the campus of Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church near New Castle. “This is awesome,” said Carla Davis, a Red Clay staffer on her first trip to Phoenix, chaperoning students from Meadowood, a Red Clay School District program for intellectual and developmental disabilities. “I had never even heard about this place, and I’m really impressed. It’s a great chance to help.”

‘And she delivers’ 

From a donated Newark facility, Phoenix contracts with people – 90 percent in recovery from substance abuse – to grade items and sort them into 20 categories. What Phoenix can’t use is sold as rags, which generates enough income each year to pay about 10 contractors and Jagnanan herself.

 “We are committed to honoring every textile we receive,” she said. “Items that aren’t suitable for direct redistribution are responsibly recycled – repurposed into industrial wiping cloths or other textile reuse streams – helping reduce waste and keep clothing out of our landfills. This process supports our environmental mission while ensuring that nothing goes to waste in our pursuit of dignity, sustainability and community care. With the primary goal to achieve zero waste.”

Phoenix Family Resources’ store – where it’s all free – is open 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and by appointment the rest of the week. Most people make an appointment. 

“We built this space with one purpose – to make it easier for caseworkers and their clients to get what they need without the runaround,” she said. “Whether you come with a client or send them to us, know this: we’ll meet them where they are. No judgment, no red tape – just dignity, compassion and a place that sees the whole person, not just the need.”

“If they need anything, I send them to her,” said CJ Colburn, an outreach specialist with Community Collaboration of Delaware, whose office is across the hall from Phoenix. “And she delivers.”

“What can I say about an organization that I can send one or 100 people there to be helped? Babita and Phoenix Family Resources turned no one away,” said PennyAnne Badders-Rogers, executive director of Face the Facts Delaware, noting that the organizations have together furnished “tons of recovery residences. … And then she takes it from there and gives them every textile they need. Curtains, carpets, bedding, blankets, spatulas, dishes, you name it. She’s got it. She takes their houses and makes them into homes. Face the Facts is so incredibly grateful to have her and Phoenix Family Resources as community partners.”

Jagnanan relies on being given items in bulk (like the 10,000 pairs of Bombas socks she receives annually), getting items from other nonprofits (from places like Chester Bethel United Methodist Church, which twice a year clears its thrift shop; Table of Plenty Delaware; the Center for Neighbors in Need at the People’s Church of Dover; and Habitat for Humanity of New Castle County) and collecting donations from 42 bins in Kent and New Castle counties (the bins themselves are recycled, too). She also scours the web for bargains.

61,636 families helped in 2024

In 2024, Phoenix Family Resources distributed goods valued at $7.4 million to 61,636 families statewide, according to its annual report. To “combat the opioid crisis and support public health,” it trained 16,683 people to administer Narcan and distributed 139,678 pieces of harm-reduction products, including wound-care kits, safer-sex kits, syringe exchange supplies and other critical items.

Phoenix helps out where it can and connects people to other places to address multiple societal and economic issues, such as food insecurity (not having enough food, particularly nutritious items), treatment services for substance abuse, harm reduction access to housing and period poverty (not having menstrual supplies). “We make sure their entire being is serviced, not just part,” she said. 

“Through contributions from individuals and partners, Phoenix regularly fills requests for clothing and backpacks for school children, baby supplies for new parents, coats and blankets for the unhoused, bedding and basic appliances for those in substance use disorder abatement programs,” according to phoenixfamilyresourcesde.org. Phoenix also packs items for the Hope Center, a New Castle County facility offering housing and support for people experiencing homelessness.

“If you ever walk around in the substance-abuse world, you don’t realize how many people just need a little bit of help to get their lives back together,” Jagnanan said. “85 percent of textiles end up in the landfill each year, yet so many people do not have access to proper clothing, which is a human right.”

That impact sinks in to people served (“A lot of our guests that get clothing from us come back and stay as volunteers to help pay it forward”), to her family (daughter Jasmine Clough works there) and to herself.

“After graduating college, I was searching for my path,” Clough said. “I’ve always been my mom’s volunteer, watching her lead Delaware’s first woman-owned textile recovery facility with heart and hustle. After we lost our dad, I chose to stay on at Phoenix. I coordinate pickups, support the resource center, handle admin work – and help wherever I’m needed. My mom showed me that purpose and impact can go hand in hand. Through Phoenix, I’ve found a way to care for both the planet and our community.” 

“It’s given me a good space,” Jagnanan said of Phoenix, noting that she is re-evaluating her future without the benefits of her late husband’s full-time job in banking. “I’ve been trying to come back in doing this. The space has grounded me, given me a place to cry and given me a place to laugh.”