Ilze Thielmann ’88 Offers a Helping Hand to Migrants

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Thielmann ’88 

Ilze Thielmann ’88 presides over a New York City shop filled with neatly arranged racks of clothing, shoes, and toys, all given away for free. The Little Shop of Kindness, which she founded in March 2023, provides much-needed supplies to asylum seekers and migrants who have arrived in huge numbers since 2022, when the governor of Texas started busing them to the city. Last year, the shop served more than 15,000 people who had traveled to the United States from 40 countries.

One of Thielmann’s central goals was to create “an atmosphere that was dignified and welcoming and treated them as customers,” she says. “We offer sandwiches and coffee, we give them a tour of the shop, and we help them select items. We let them try clothes on and make them feel a little bit normal at a time when there is a lack of normalcy in their lives.”

Asylum seekers make appointments online to visit the shop, or receive emergency referrals from partner organizations. Volunteers guide them through the offerings of clothing as well as toiletries and other supplies, all donated or purchased with donations. At tables up front, volunteers are present to offer referrals for social services, help register children for school, and provide other resources.

After graduating from Princeton, Thielmann spent more than 24 years working as a lawyer before leaving her firm in 2017. Two years later, she began volunteering to greet asylum seekers arriving by bus at Port Authority Bus Terminal. The number of people arriving spiked sharply in 2022, prompting Thielmann to put together an improvised welcome center at the terminal.

“People got off the buses and had utter confusion and fear on their faces. They did not know what was going to happen next,” she says. After she asked for volunteers on social media, people began showing up to help every day at 5:30 a.m.

When the Port Authority told Thielmann she could no longer offer services there, she found a location in a building nearby and formalized the shop, which is part of the nonprofit organization Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden. (Thielmann is the director of Team TLC NYC, the New York branch of Grannies Respond.) When that space flooded, she held pop-ups around the city for four months in the winter, distributing coats, sweaters, and other supplies to more than 3,000 people. “We would not give up, even though we had no shop,” she says.

Earlier this year, Thielmann moved The Little Shop of Kindness to its current location, on the third floor of a church building on the Upper East Side. Everyone who works at the shop, including Thielmann, is a volunteer, one of more than 2,000 who have signed up to help since the shop opened. They range from students to retired people to migrants themselves, who often help with translating. The majority of the shop’s clients are from Latin America; there are also significant numbers of French and Arabic speakers from African countries.

In May, a couple from Ecuador visiting the shop mentioned they were looking for wedding outfits. The team found a sleeveless white dress for the bride, a button-down shirt for the groom, and rings from the shop’s jewelry counter. Thielmann purchased flowers for the ceremony and held a small reception at the shop after the couple exchanged vows in a nearby park. Three more couples have since celebrated their weddings at the shop.

The Little Shop of Kindness receives donations and grants, but Thielmann is looking for corporate sponsors to provide a steadier stream of support. “There are other human beings in need,” she says. “If we’re able to help them, there’s no choice. We have to help them.”

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This story is part of PAW’s series highlighting the stories of alumni doing inspiring work. To nominate others, please email your ideas to paw@princeton.edu.