When José Zambrano, Jennifer Rodriguez, and their 7-year-old son Lian fled Ecuador, they sought asylum in New York City with hope for a brighter, safer future.
There, with a hotel roof over their heads and money trickling in from day gigs, Zambrano and Rodriguez could finally breathe easy enough to talk about getting married.
That’s when Rodriguez went to Little Shop of Kindness — a nonprofit that collects donated clothes for migrant families — to find a wedding dress.
She had no idea she would walk away with a wedding plan.
As she scanned through the racks, Rodriguez struck up a conversation with shop volunteer Val Coleman, saying that she planned to get married at City Hall.
“I told them that I was a licensed officiant and that I would be willing to do it for free,” Coleman told Documented, a media outlet that tells the stories of immigrants.
She also suggested they swap out City Hall for Carl Schurz Park, a beautiful tree-lined park in Manhattan.
In the last year, Coleman has officiated four weddings for migrant families — with more to come.
She works with a translator to get the paperwork filled out, and tries to personalize the ceremony in small ways.
“I always ask what they love about each other and ask to write down their own vows,” Coleman told Documented.
After ceremonies in Carl Schurz Park, Ilze Thielmann — founder of the Little Shop of Kindness — fills the boutique with flower arrangements, twinkling lights, and slices of cake to transform it into a reception space.
“We are helping them in a wide variety of ways,” Thielmann said. “Not just feeding and clothing them, [we’re] giving them dignity and respect and kindness and warmth — a soft place to land.”
UPDATE: A version of this article originally appeared in the 2025 Relationships Edition of the Goodnewspaper. As of November 26, 2025, Little Shop of Kindness had closed its physical location.
A statement on their website reads: “The Little Shop of Kindness has closed its (physical) doors. While the shop is no longer in business, Team TLC NYC will continue and strengthen its work supporting migrants and asylum seekers through legal triage tables, pro se legal clinics, and know-your-rights sessions.
If you are a migrant or asylum seeker in need of clothes and supplies, the following organizations can help:
- Cathedral Community Cares,1047 Amsterdam Avenue at 112th Street, Tuesdays and Thursdays 10am - noon
- St. Paul and St. Andrew Church, 86th Street and West End Avenue, Mondays 9 am - 11 am
- Xavier Mission, 46 West 16th Street, 9am - 11am (men's clothes on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month, women's and children's clothes on the 3rd Sunday of each month
Thank you for your support in this time of transition.”
Header image via Luis Quintero / Pexels
