Patricia Harless
Career Wardrobe founding organizer

Story By:  Karin Phillips
KYW Newsradio Community Affairs Reporter

There would be no Career Wardrobe without Patricia Harless.  Pat is one of the founders of the organization, originally called “The Working Wardrobe.”  Under Pat's leadership as Board Chairman, The Wardrobe hired its first executive director, won a multi-year grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, and created the organization's annual fundraising event, “A Perfect Fit,” which now earns fifty times more than it did  five years ago, when it began.

Pat embodies The Career Wardrobe's mission of empowering women to succeed.  When she and a group of women from her church started researching the idea of bringing The Career Wardrobe to Philadelphia, they estimated that about 1,800 women could be outfitted in three years.  However, in the first three years, The Career Wardrobe outfitted an incredible 3,600 women. 

Pat never looked at The Career Wardrobe as a charity, but as a support system.  "I had a support system in my life.  And if I could be part of a support system for women who were at a critical point in their lives, then it was necessary."   

So committed to The Career Wardrobe, Pat not only recruited her two daughters to join its Board of Directors but also her husband, Roger, who was one of the few male Wardrobe volunteers in the organization's early days.   

Although no longer on the Board of Directors, Pat remains an active volunteer for The Career Wardrobe, helping to organize the monthly East Falls Church Clothing Drive, fundraising for the organization, and helping out any way she can.

Photographed By:  Jeffrey Holder, Jeffrey Holder Photography

Photographed with “The Working Wardrobe” mug which was created in 1995