When Terri Howard got the email that there was a donation for TUSD’s clothing bank, she hopped into a little van and drove over to the church where the donation was being stored.
When Howard, program coordinator for the district’s Family Resource Center, told the woman at the church she was there to pick up the donation, the woman laughed and led Howard to a warehouse that was packed with boxes floor to ceiling.
“We’re gonna need some trucks,” Howard recalls saying. “Let me get back to you.”
Four truckloads later, an estimated 800 boxes of brand-new clothes sat in Howenstine High School, ready to sort and distribute to schools in the Tucson Unified School District and its clothing banks.
Dozens of volunteers and TUSD staff sorted through the items Friday, music and portable AC units blasting, bringing the temperature in the closed-down school down to stuffy but bearable.
Kids helped their moms open boxes and tape up the ones that had been sorted. One volunteer stacked pink shirts, checking every tag to make sure they were all the same size. TUSD staff members loaded boxes onto hand trucks and towed them into the appropriate rooms, depending on the size, gender-designation, item and color.
There are two words that come up repeatedly when the staff and volunteers describe the donation: overwhelming and surreal.
“We very seldom get new items,” Howard says. “And we never get a donation like this.”
Most donations are used clothing — a mom who’s gone through her child’s closet looking for clothes that no longer fit, Howard says. Typically, the only new clothing they get are socks and underwear donated by the Educational Enrichment Foundation.
Alight, a humanitarian organization, in conjunction with Streams in the Desert Lutheran Church, donated the new clothing, which are League 91 and Red Shirt brands. The item are mostly winter clothes — good quality hoodies, sweatshirts, T-shirts, sweatpants and jackets, in only adult and older child sizes, for middle and high schoolers.
“There is no reason for our kids to be cold this winter. That’s for sure,” says Rosa Escalante, the family liaison for the Wakefield Family Resource Center, one of several in the district.
A number of TUSD students came into the clothing bank looking for hoodies and sweatshirts on a rainy day last week, says Lisa Gonzales, program coordinator for the district’s Family Community and Outreach. She says there were some used ones to give out but that this donation came at just the right time.
The clothing is available to all TUSD families. They can visit and pick out clothes every four months. Students can select five tops and three bottoms each visit. Parents can select one outfit, and minor siblings who don’t attend TUSD can select three tops and two bottoms.
But with this large of a donation, Howard says, they will be taking loads of clothing to the schools.
Jackets can be donated to the Tucson High mariachi band to be embroidered with their logo, and clothes that fit individual school colors can be sent to the appropriate high and middle schools, she says.
The resource centers have more than clothes. There’s also a food pantry, and they offer a variety of workshops for parents on topics such as parenting, nutrition and health, English learning, computer literacy, and “anything that can support families so they can focus on their kids,” Howard says.
All the classes are free for TUSD parents and are taught by volunteers from the community.
The full schedule of classes and more information on the centers and clothing banks can be found at tusd1.org/Departments/Family-Centers.
The donation is going to have a huge impact on TUSD families, says Kristi Olbert, who runs the main clothing bank.
“I have just been hoping and hoping for a huge donation, so this is pretty exciting,” she said.
