NEWPORT, Ky. — There’s a lot you could find in the Costume Gallery in Newport. Creative Director Joy Galbraith said the business has been running since 1996.

“I’ve always sewn… You do a costume for this, and a costume for this person, and finally you end up with a shop,” she said.

She’s met a lot of different people—actors, producers, and others who work behind the scenes in film and plays. For her, it allows her to get those creative juices flowing.

Her latest project is a little different.

Galbraith said she was inspired to collect uniform-style articles of clothing to help those soldiers in Ukraine and even had some lying around the shop to add.

“I just felt like I needed to do something and this is what I could do,” she said.

It’s taken off. Several community members have donated items over the weeks she’s been collecting. Some people coming in have different stories, like veterans who once wore those items themselves.

“It was so interesting the people that brought it, you know? Some of it was, ‘Oh I’ve had this in my basement, I worked in the military, I was stationed in Germany.’ Just all of those things and they’d just drop it off. And it was all ages,” she said.

Galbraith said Matthew 25 ministries, out of Ohio, is helping her get these items overseas to these fighters. So now her items will take the world stage for battle, not for a play or movie.

“Well, it’s a little unbelievable! I’m thinking, here I am in Newport and I have a costume shop and I’m sending things to war. I just… I guess it’s my little bit of contribution to help save a country that is fighting their hardest and should be saved,” she said.

Galbraith is also taking monetary donations and buying up in more items to ensure there’s enough of everything to go around.