Number of Participants: 3
Hours Donated: 100
Value of Time Served: $2,535
Event Type: Children & Youth
Sport: Team
School: Waterloo High School
Date: April 19, 2021
Location:
Waterloo High School
Stark Street, Waterloo
NY
About:
This idea was based on the Rachel’s Closet concept that was named for Rachel Joy Scott, a student killed in the Columbine school shooting. Presently, there are only the three students (Abbie, Amelia and Petra) who are actively creating this shop. Abbie and Petra are student athletes, and Amelia is a dancer.
The three girls are entirely responsible for the concept, the details, and the proposal. They started by coming to the advisors of student council and NHS, and we helped them prioritize. They wrote donation request letters to dozens of local businesses. They have organized clothing and food we have already received. They have designed the interior of our shop, picking paint colors and recruiting our tech staff to building the shelving we need.
I anticipate that we will be recruiting other students to staff our shop in the future!
At this point, they have put in 80-100 hours and they aren’t even open yet. We have made an advertising video, had a contest to name the shop, and they started off by touching base with a neighboring school who has been operating a Rachel’s Closet to find out about how to proceed. If you google “Rachel’s Closet” you will find a lot of different visions. We have over 80% of our students on free and reduced lunch, so we are termed a “rural poor” district. For that reason, it was important to the girls that EVERYONE got to pick things up for free. It was also important that we have a food pantry as well since many of our kids don’t have enough food on the weekends or when there is no school breakfast or lunch available. The pandemic has been horrible. We started packing bagged breakfasts and lunches the week we closed last spring, and haven’t stopped since.
