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There's a sale going on at the Blessed Table Thrift Shop. Anything you can fit in a paper bag is $3 through Sept. 27. That's down from the regular price of $5.

"The ladies tell me that if you roll it up, you can get more in the bag," said volunteer Naomi Edmondson, demonstrating with a designer-label dress.

Shopping there this week, I got 18 clothing items in a bag - meaning the shopping trip cost me less than 20 cents an item.

Single items are 50 cents through Sept. 27, when they're usually $1 (a few items, including men's dress suits, are $3 to $10).

There was that black Cache dress, whose designer label I had to look up on the Internet. A similar one sells for upwards of $200 online. Maybe it was last season, because they get a lot of usable and new items donated here, some directly from boutiques.

From the men's rack I found a barely used, 100 percent cotton Geoffrey Beene button-down shirt. Seasoned thrift-store shoppers know, for example, that in looking for children's clothing, you have to be careful because of stains. I did, however, discover after purchase a small stain on a white shirt. The volunteers who hang the clothes try to weed those out.

I also found usable kids' pajamas and shirts, and a two-piece wind suit.

Volunteer Ernestine Scott of Lee's Chapel United Methodist Church was happy to see so many items go. They're readying the fall and winter collection.

"We also want to give them the best bargain they can find," Scott said. She stood in the old fellowship hall of Bessemer United Methodist Church, the hub of the eight-church ministry, as a young man and his mother left with two bags of clothing. One was full of shoes.

Although one of the churches might not be able to handle this operation on its own - providing free food to the hungry as well as low-cost clothing - they've found the way together. Ed Lemons, a board member at Greensboro Urban Ministry, helped create the Blessed Table Food Pantry and Clothing Thrift Shop. The Blessed Table works in partnership with Urban Ministry, which donates some of the food in the pantry.

"We are now spending $600 a month to buy food because everybody's hurting for food, and so we really need donations," Lemons said.

"If we sell enough clothes per month, we are usually in good shape."

The operation here exists through those donations and volunteers largely from the participating United Methodist churches - Bass Chapel, Bessemer, Carraway, Laughlin, Lee's Chapel, Newlyn Street, Proximity and St. Paul - who hang clothes and even help people shop.

The ministry is based on Matthew 25:35: "For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink."

While there's a referral required for the bags of food - which recently included cans of stew beef, salmon, soup, vegetables and peanut butter, along with boxed dry milk - volunteer Albert Vaughn of Carraway admits they won't let anyone go away hungry.

"Right at closing recently, these guys came in and said they were starving," Vaughn said.

"I didn't question them. I just went to this shelf with pop-top items and gave them something to eat."

Other times, the family might get a bag of food and instructions on how to get a referral.

The idea isn't to make it hard on people, but to make sure the food spreads as far as possible, touching as many people as possible, Vaughn said.

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com