Karleen’s Closet helps supply the less fortunate at CCMS

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Life in middle school can be challenging for even the most fortunate kids.

But when your family can’t always afford things such as clothing, shoes, sporting supplies and toiletry and hygienic items, life can be more than difficult — everyday life can become a nightmare.

Karleen’s Closet can help.

“If you need it, here it is. No questions asked,” said Karleen Sickman, who is an intervention room coordinator for the Charles City School District.

Karleen’s Closet is filled with donated items to go to kids who, for whatever reason, don’t have them. The idea grew out of Charles City’s peer mentoring program, Project Rise, which is a student-led, peer-to-peer program where high school kids volunteer their time to help middle school kids.

Project “RISE” stands for “Respect, Integrity, Success, and Empowerment.”

Dan Caffrey, Charles City High School at-risk coordinator and drop-out prevention specialist, is the faculty leader of Project RISE, although the students run the program.

Sickman said, “A lot of kids would come back and tell me the student they were mentoring had needs. They just didn’t have these things.”

Mentors are encouraged to do community service projects, and so they started brainstorming with Sickman.

“We thought we really should have some services and some extra things for these middle school-aged kids who sometimes don’t have what everyone else has,” Sickman said. “We started to collect some of the items that kids might need to help them get through middle school and even early high school years.”

What started off as a small collection of things like clothing and shoes eventually evolved to toiletries, personal items and much more.

“We started storing things in one corner of this classroom,” said CCHS student and peer mentor Katie Garcia. “From there, we got leased to use a closet outside the music room that we share, and we have all these things that we’ve accumulated over time.”

Karleen’s Closet continues to grow, and Garcia said the mentors are working on building some more shelving in the closet.

“We do need a lot more space,” said high school mentor Coen Tibbitts. “We don’t have enough room for all the stuff that’s going in there.”

The mentors all said that the stigma and embarrassment than can sometimes attach itself to an individual who needs charity items has not been an issue, largely due to the bond established between the mentor and the protégé, and the trust that’s been built.

“One of our goals between our mentors and protégés is we have a trust,” said mentor Sadie Gebel. “No judgment, so they feel like if they need something they can tell us, and they aren’t embarrassed.”

“We don’t ask questions,” Sickman added. “If a student says they have a need, we try to help them.”

Sickman said the best items that are donated to the closet are probably athletic wear.

“I’ve also been told that there’s a need for sports equipment for kids, that it might help them get involved in activities,” she said. “We’ve also thought about band, speech — what do these kids need that might make it easier for them to participate in extracurricular activities? We’re still evolving.”

The program works through a network of communication. A teacher might notice something, or a student might reach out to an adult in the building, and that adult will reach out to Karleen’s Closet on behalf of that student. The mentor group also sometimes reaches out.

“We are working with some kids who have some tough life situations outside of school,” Sickman said. “I think with the relationships they’ve built with their mentors, the kids are more inclined to ask for something that they need.”

Anyone who wishes to donate items should contact Caffrey or Sickman at the school. Items can be dropped off at the high school or middle school office.

“If we get something donated that we know there isn’t a need for, we do pass it along to either The Treasure Chest, or we take it to Goodwill,” said Sickman, who added that they have received clothing items that were too small for middle school students, and those were passed on to the elementary schools.