NORWICH – With just a few days left of their annual Holiday Clothing Drive, the Norwich City School District and The Place are scrambling to fill the needs of local families this holiday season.
“There are still a lot of tags on the trees,” said Dave Sheldon, Executive Director of the Place, referring to the giving trees and snow men located at Wal Mart and each of the Norwich City Schools. Ornaments on those trees indicate specific needs for clothing items to fill the large volume of requests the program has received this year.
According to Sheldon, the trees will remain in place throughout the day on Thursday. Following that time, community members who still wish to donate can call The Place to learn what items are still needed. They can also call the school district, and ask to speak with one of the three social workers on staff, to obtain that information.
In addition to donations of new clothing items, monetary donations are also accepted. According to Norwich High School Social Worker Kelly Collins-Colosi, those funds are then used to purchases needed items.
This is by no means the first time the Norwich School District has held the Holiday Clothing Drive, but it may very well be the largest in terms of the number of families served.
“The district started doing this on a much smaller scale in the 1980s,” Colosi explained. It wasn’t until the last four or five years, that the need, and consequently the program, has grown to its current level.
That need continues to grow. Last year, the clothing drive benefited 200 families, providing clothes for more than 600 children. They have already exceeded that number of families, according to Stanford Gibson Primary School Social Worker Luann Kida. And the requests are still coming in.
These requests are initiated not only by the families in need, she reported, but also through referrals from friends, neighbors and other agencies.
“We try really hard not to turn people away,” said Kida, explaining that they try to meet whatever needs a family has, including providing clothes for kids age 0 to 18.
While The Place has been involved with the program in the past, mainly by providing volunteer hours, this is the first year that they have taken the “lead role” in the partnership.
“They have been able to tap into volunteers which we haven’t been able to access before,” said Colosi. As a result of those volunteers, as well as Sheldon’s fundraising and organizational efforts, the social worker says the school will be “able to meet needs that they couldn’t have met alone.”
Approximately $3,500 has been raised so far, she said. Part of the money has come from individual donors, but they have also received donations from Walmart, the Robert Smith Foundation, Norwich Educators Organization, Senator Thomas Libous’ YES Leads Program, Visions Federal Credit Union and Norwich Pharmaceuticals.
Kida gave a special thanks to Walmart for the retailer’s cooperation with collecting clothing items on behalf of the program as well as allowing the giving trees to be placed in the store. She also had praise for Unison, which allowed 29 of their employees to volunteer while “on the clock.”
Plenty of others have pitched in as well, including faculty and staff from Norwich, members of The Place’s board of directors and a youth group from the United Church of Christ. These volunteers have spent countless hours shopping for needed items, sorting and folding clothes and filling requests.
In addition, a group of student leaders from Norwich High School has volunteered to help transport the filled requests from Gibson to the community room at Morrisville State College’s Norwich Branch campus. The move will take place Monday, and parents will be able to collect the items from that location from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday.
According to Sheldon, having the off-site distribution point helps maintain the “surprise factor” for kids as well as the program’s anonymity.
For more information on the Holiday Clothing Drive or to make a donation, contact The Place at 336-9696. To contact a social worker associated with the program, contact the Norwich City School District at 334-1600.