From the outside of Purple Lemon located in Bayou Vista, it portrays to be just a thrift store with a cafe.
But when the store is closed Sunday through Wednesday it serves as a place for worship, as well as clothe and feed those in addiction programs.
The 33,000 foot warehouse also has a Second Harvest Food Bank and employees and volunteers serve people on Thursdays.
Stacey Lancaster is currently the founder and director of the Purple Lemon, a non-profit organization.
The organization provides assistance through food and clothing to Chez Hope, Fairview Treatment Center, Louisiana Adult and Teen Challenge and Claire House.
“ I love having fairview here,” Lancaster said.
“People come off the street and we give them free meals, we pray for them, whatever it is they need. If they need clothes they can come up here. If they want talk to one of our ladies or talk to me we’re open to talking to them because we want to give them hope. That’s what this whole thing is.”
And if you’d asked Lancaster five years ago if she’d be running a non-profit organization today, she would’ve said no way.
“We ran 340 Bed Bath and Beyonds,” Lancaster said. “We sold to distribution centers like Church Point Whole Sale, we ran all the Rouses stores.”
For 24 years Lancaster was the CEO of Lancaster House, a whole sale business. Until one day she was on a plane and was called to do something different.
“All I could say is it was the Lord because I never experienced something like that before,” Lancaster said. “He gave me the whole business plan for what I’m doing now. It was so profound and so detailed and we’re still walking it out.”
Lancaster’s maternal instincts for fostering those in addiction and giving them a second chance comes from someone close her heart. her son who recovered from substance abuse.
“I think that’s why now, as a mother, seeing your son going from just being the happiest kid enjoying life to in a dark place, I think that it gives you a heart,” Lancaster said.
Lancaster currently rents 3 apartments that serve as transitional houses and many of those women are employed at her coffee shop as part of a one year program.
She said in this program she also wanted to teach financial responsibility and if the women save $1,000 she matches them with $3,000.
One of the thrift stores employees, Kearsten Richard was in drug court looking to complete community service hours at the store and never left.
“I realized that they do stuff with Fairview and that really touched me because that’s where I started,”
Richard said. “I’m two and a half years clean today and that’s where my journey originally started so to see everything they do for Fairview was like a complete 360. I saw the full circle for everything.”
Through Lancaster’s non-profit she hopes to inspire others to walk in freedom.
“Employable and productive individuals for society. I’ll say that. So to be able to hold down a job, to be able to balance their bills and to be able to pay their bills. But a piece inside of them too.”
Lancaster's next venture is opening a center for the youth in her store on Thursdays through Saturday.
