Our New Clothing for Kids Program strives to help students improve their self-esteem by ensuring they have clothing appropriate for the seasons.  We provided more than 3300 pieces of clothing and more than 200 pairs of sneakers during the past school year to meet that goal.  Those items included sweatshirts, sweatpants, leggings, shirts, sweaters, underwear, socks, and sneakers, as well as winter jackets, hats, gloves, and scarves.  Our marvelous fashionistas were not satisfied with those impressive statistics and devised an ingenious way to end the school year for a few select students.  The New Clothing Team wanted to provide complete outfits to six students at the schools we serve to help them get a jump on summer.  We asked our school contacts to provide the specific sizes, color preferences, etc. for their students who might have had an especially challenging year, experienced great hardship, or needed an extra ‘pick-me-up.’  With those details, our Clothing Team purchased complete outfits for the students selected by the school counselors: shirts, shorts or pants, shoes, underwear & socks.  They put those items in colorful gift bags and included a personal note to each student wishing them a good summer and hoping they enjoy their clothing.

The school counselors were very receptive to the idea and all indications are the students who received the outfits were delighted with their unexpected end-of-school-year bonus.

The students’ joy with their new items was a bonus for our members.