A Thursday donation of clothing at Sudduth Elementary School by Christian World Missions helps highlight some Starkville schools’ needs for their clothes closets.
The donation was for about $240 worth of clothing, according to Christian World Missions Executive Director Lee Ann Williamson. Williamson, along with Christian World Missions Director of Operations and Events Lori Smith, made the donation after seeing a Facebook post about a clothing drive at Sudduth.
The donation helped cap the clothing drive, which ended on Friday. However Marchelle Brain, chair of the clothes closets with the Parent Teacher Organization, said the drive — which was pushed on social media — is meant to highlight the need for clothes at the district’s schools. The schools started the year with decently-stocked clothes closets, but the available clothing has diminished as the school year passes on.
“All the schools accept donations year-round,” Brain said. “It’s just about trying to get the publicity out so people know it’s here. Because a lot of people say, ‘Oh I didn’t even know we had one of those.'”
The clothes closets allow schools to stock extra school uniforms for students who may need them, said Faye Smith, a social worker for Sudduth and Overstreet elementary schools. Clothes are distributed entirely based on need, she said.
“We do not give it out unless it is needed,” she said. “This is almost an everyday thing where we need it. Sometimes kids will have accidents, and we have to go the closets for that. There may be parents that cannot get up here to the schools, and we have forms to fill out if they need supplies such as clothing, shirts and pants.”
She thought it was “awesome” to see people who are willing to donate to the clothes closet and added she’s thankful for Brain and the PTO helping to bring attention to the schools’ need for clothes.
“We’ve had some parents to bring a few things in,” Smith said. “They’ve seen the announcement that Mrs. Brain has put out for everyone to see, and they’re just so willing to give. It’s awesome — you just don’t know what it means (that) we have people who are willing to come in and give to us for the less fortunate.”
Smith and Williamson also each direct a Modern Woodmen of America chapter in Starkville, and Williamson said the funds came from their participation in the organization. Williamson said the organization, in addition to Thursday’s donation, will hold clothing drives over the summer to help refill clothes closets at every Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District campus.
“In June this year, all seven of the Modern Woodmen Chapters here in Starkville are going to be holding clothing drives for all of the Starkville public schools to restock their clothing closets for the 20018-2019 school year,” she said.
Williamson also said that she hoped the donation would help raise awareness of the closets.
“I have a high school student, but I didn’t even know the schools had these kind of clothes closets that would meet greater needs than just a one-day accident for kids,” Williamson said. “It might be clothing for if a child only has one uniform they can wear to school and they don’t have a uniform that they can wash, so every night they have to go home and wash that uniform.
“With the clothes closet at school, the school can help those kids to have a pair to wear and a pair to air, so to speak,” she added.
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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