Published On: Fri, Jul 18th, 2014

Community Closet – Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Closet to Closet

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By: Quezia Salgado

As part of their volunteering program, the Rotaract Club at Palm Beach State College goes to Boca Helping Hands every Friday to help out with their food distribution. After a couple of months of volunteering Nicole Richards was shocked to see two-year-olds with bare feet, grown men wearing torn up clothes, and girls her age without proper attire for school or everyday life. Thinking about how much clothing she had in her own closet, Richards was compelled to clean it out and even got her friends and family to do the same.

The following month, Richards brought out the clothing she’d gathered to Boca Helping Hands’ and handed out one full rack of clothing to about 200 people within ten minutes.

After several distributions, people who were receiving the clothes began to ask if they could bring in clothing they didn’t wear anymore, which could potentially serve their neighbors.“This is how we came up with the motto: ‘Neighbors Helping Neighbors, Closet to Closet’, and it’s really brought the community together,” says Richards.

Following the success of the first clothing giveaway, more and more articles of clothing continued to come in. When they could no longer fit in Richards’ guest room, Community Closet received a donation of a storage unit from Mr. Batmasian of the Rotary Club to house all the clothing. They now receive up to about 2,000 items a month with donations by residents who live anywhere from Deerfield Beach to Delray.

Several local businesses have opened their doors to the Community Closet and have boxes in place so customers can drop off clothing. Richards is amazed at how much the project has grown, “we’re able to help every single demographic, from newborn infants to people in their 80s.”

All the families registered with Boca Helping Hands live below the poverty level and therefore don’t have basic opportunities that most people take for granted like going out shopping. For this reason Richards had the idea of turning the clothing hand outs into a shopping experience, “we bring out carpet and try to make it look like a store for them because they don’t get to have those experiences.”

The Community Closet has been going strong for three years now and the amazing testimonies of people who’ve been helped by their efforts continue to flood in. One in particular was the case of an elderly man who had lost his home and had to go back to work at the age of 70. Too embarrassed to tell his kids about losing his home and having to find a job, he went to the clothing giveaway and was able to find a suit and dress shoes that fit him perfectly. Richards recalled, “he looked up at me and said: ‘I prayed to God that he would provide me with a suit, and here you are.” This was the moment she knew the Community Closet was something she wanted to do full-on.

On one of their most recent drives the project was joined by Anthony and Matthew Pollack, a father and son duo, who also contributed with clothing. Matthew and John Pollack, ages nine and 12, are students at the Weiss School of Palm Beach Gardens and after seeing the clothing drive at Boca Helping Hands they presented the project to the student population and were able to gather dozens of bags of clothing.

In partnership with Boca Helping Hands, the Rotary Club and Rotaract club, which sends out volunteers every week to help at the food drives, the continuous mission of the Community Closet is to restore dignity to those in need by providing them with clothing for job interviews or just for everyday life. As Richards says, “If you have on a dirty T-shirt and old sneakers, you won’t go to a job interview like that. So, in providing them with these items, it boosts their self-esteem and gives them a reason to be proud of themselves.”

The Community Closet accepts donations at the Rotaract Club’s Office in Students Activities at the Boca Raton campus of Palm Beach State College.

For more information, contact Nicole Richards at (754)444-6426

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