We are in the process of starting a care closet for our Wea Ridge Middle School students. On an almost daily basis we have students in need of clothes, shoes, toiletries, winter gear, etc. Our hope is to turn a small space into a closet for these items to be organized.
The clothing closet will be a new addition to our school so we will be in need of garment racks, shelves, bins, and hangers for organization. We will also be purchasing the items to fill the closet, which will include: clothing items, toiletries, and cold weather apparel. We hope to start the closet for our students as soon as possible, and we hope to maintain our supplies through grant opportunities and community donations.
For this project we use our Roots & Shoots grant money to purchase the organizational supplies that we needed for our Care Closet. We also purchased some basic items, such as toiletries, to begin stocking the closet. We have been lucky enough to get donations from the community so that we have been able to fill the Care Closet with clothes, shoes, and additional toiletries and personal care products. Our Care Closet is now up and running, and able to help our students on a daily basis.
Through this project we learned that everything takes more time than we think it will. Just hanging and sorting clothes took hours. It also felt overwhelming at time to know what products to purchase to best support our school community. Reaching out to teachers who directly interact with students each day helped a great deal.
This is an ongoing project, and we will continue to grow and expand as times goes on. We are hopeful that this Care Closet will be available long-term for our school community.
My favorite part of this project was how excited our students were to be involved in setting up something that they knew would support their fellow students. So many of them brought in donations of their own clothes, it was amazing!
I would encourage others to get the community involved in their project. And if you can involve students their excitement can be infectious to others!
