The Kids Belong closets have been around for several years now, supporting with foster families and helping fill in the gaps with clothing and baby care items like cribs, toys, and diapers. We have been extremely blessed by the generosity of our community in keeping the closet stocked with all of those needed items.
As we’ve grown we’ve had more and more awareness around town and we’ve received more and more donations. That has been an amazing thing, but it has not come without it’s challenges. The closet is run by volunteers, in fact Kids Belong is a non-profit that is run by volunteers as well. This means that all of the sorting and upkeep of the closet is done on a volunteer basis.
This means that when you are donating to the closet, I’d like to ask for your help. Let me share a couple of stories to give you an idea of the challenges:
Here is not so much a story, but a photo that sheds some light on the storage room for the closet on Apple Ave. Donations come in quickly and need to be sorted so they can be put out for families to shop, but the backlog can get overwhelming at times.
The first thing that you can do to help is when you donate, please sort your donation by size and gender, and put them folded neatly into a box. Garbage bags full of clothes are messy and labor intensive to sort. Having clothes pre-sorted means our volunteers can get them on the shelves faster, and they don’t get as bogged down with the large volume of sorting that needs to be done.
Sadly, we can say from experience that a good percentage of those donations will probably not be able to be used. A lot of donations come in with stains and tears, or are in such bad shape that we can’t put them out.
I remember once some time ago having a box of donated items, and when the volunteer lifted it to unpack it, the bottom fell out. Out came all kinds of shredded paper, fabric, and mouse droppings. The box had been in a garage, perhaps, and I’d guess it was donated without knowing what was really at the bottom of it.
This brings me to the second way that you can help. Please donate clothing that is in excellent used or like new condition. Foster kids tend to get a lot of hand me downs already, sometimes an agency or group home will put them in whatever they have lying around, so it’s not uncommon to receive children in clothes that are worn, dirty, and not at all their size.
We don’t want foster kids to stick out at school for their worn out and ill fitting wardrobe, we don’t really want to put them in leftover play clothes. There may be other places to donate old and nearly worn out items, but let’s not donate those to foster kids. Even better than used clothing are the items that your kids never wore, or only wore a few times. Or better yet, clearance items from the store. When you see a great clearance deal, but it’s not in the size or style that your kids would wear it, I guarantee we know some kids in foster care who would love to receive something new!
When you’re cleaning out a closet, I know it’s easier just to throw everything into a bag and drop it off somewhere, so I know that what I’m asking for is more work than that. It requires a little more effort to sort through and find the stuff without stains, holes, tears, fading, etc. And it takes more work to box it up, sorted and folded neatly, separate from everything else. But that’s what serving others is all about. It’s about giving our best, the best of our time and our resources.
We think giving to foster kids and helping foster families is worth the extra time and energy. And we are so grateful for your support!