Jenna Root, 11, looks at a dress with her mom, Jennifer, while shopping at Old Navy in Stevenson Ranch during the Assistance League’s Operation School Bell on Tuesday. Katharine Lotze/The Signal
For some Santa Clarita Valley kids and their families, this was a clothes encounter … of the most welcome kind.
About 130 school kids, along with their parents, were expected to turn out at the Old Navy store in Stevenson Ranch on Tuesday night for the first leg of “Operation School Bell’’ – an annual program sponsored by Assistance League Santa Clarita and aimed at providing new clothes and shoes for the start of the school year to children identified as in need.
“It’s very exciting and gratifying to see the look of joy on the faces of these little kids when they realize they’re getting new clothes, and (won’t) have to wear hand-me-downs,’’ said Tracy Klehn, public relations chair of the assistance league.
For school-age kids, she said, being able to dress like everyone else is a great boost to self-image – and self-image is a big key to school performance.
“Sometimes I cry, I’m so glad to help these kids,’’ said Connie Loerch, chair of the School Bell program.
The program, which runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays through Oct. 27 – serving different grades on different days – is expected to outfit some 2,700 kids this year, sending them to class lookin’ sharp.
Kids in kindergarten through fifth grade were on hand Tuesday night. They each got a $75 credit toward their new duds. Sixth- through 12th-graders will get a $125 allowance.
Each kid also gets a gift card for Payless Shoes, to complete their ensembles.
Jenna, a pigtailed 11-year-old a sixth grader at Sulphur Springs Elementary School, beamed through braced teeth as she admired the blue patterned dress and white blouse she picked out herself. It was a nice complement to her purple glasses — and the purple-and-green cast on her left arm, the result of a roller-skating mishap.
“I really like the design and the color she said,” she said as her mom, Jennifer, looked on.
James, a 6-year-old first grader at the same school, chose an array of jeans and shirts, including a purple T-shirt that said,“Call Me Beast.”
“I’m going to go home and show my little brother,” he said.
The School Bell program began, humbly, in 1991, distributing donated shoes at Wiley Canyon Elementary School. Since then it has grown to serve the entire Newhall School District and, now, all the public schools in the Santa Clarita Valley.
Over the years, it has helped some 25,000 students, the league said.
It is financed mainly through revenues from the league’s thrift shop on Main Street in Newhall, plus financial donations.
