We're also a uniform school, but only means white or navy polo shirt and khaki/navy/black pants/shorts/jumpers. We ask for outgrown items to be donated. We have a social worker at the school who pretty much knows who needs what.At Christmas time, she has an angel tree that lists only the gender/age and anyone can take an angel and return the unwrapped items for the social worker to distribute.
The clothes are available for any child who might need them.They're kept in bins in the teacher mailroom, sorted by sizes. If a child should have an accident etc., the teacher can find something for them and it's usually intended as a loan and expected back. This doesn't always happen, but it's not a big deal since we never seem to run out.
We actually prefer that PTO is ignorant of who are the needy families in the school. People, even well intentioned ones, are still human. Generally, if there is a special need( we have been asked to donate food and cash before), the principal will give us general info and ask if we can help. We don't really need to know specifics since we know the principal wouldn't even ask if there weren't true need.
You're right about violating privacy--we've actually had offers refused/been read the riot act when we directly approached a family that we KNEW were in true need. We'd inadvertantly humiliated the family. That taught us to leave it to the social worker & principal--that's their job.

We asked the school about having these families volunteer to work at the sale (we get $25 uniform credit per 4 hours worked at the new uniform sale) but were told that the school is not allowed to give the names of families that get free uniforms

The way around this would be to let everyone know regardless of their income and I'd bet that you'd have more volunteers than you need.I'd say that the upper income families wouldn't apply, but the lower income probably would. Those who volunteer but don't really need the credit could always donate their time to a pool that purchases the uniforms and PTO can leave distribution to the school's discretion.

The last day of school we ask our outgoing 8th graders to donate their uniforms for our uniform swap. We then have a uniform swap day in August before school starts. We give tokens (laminated paper tokens) for donated items and accept them at the uniform swap in exchange for an item and also sell items for $3 and $5. We also keep an inventory list throughout the year that parents can check for items as needed.
Our uniform company comes in May to sell new uniforms. Low income families are given discounts/free items depending on need. We asked the school about having these families volunteer to work at the sale (we get $25 uniform credit per 4 hours worked at the new uniform sale) but were told that the school is not allowed to give the names of families that get free uniforms.

For the past three years we have run a uniform thrift shop. We collect "gently used" uniforms at the end of the year and sell them for $1 a piece at our open house. Thru out the year our ESOL aides and other staff, will find children that need uniforms, and after recieving permission from the parent, we gladly send something home. As a public school requiring uniforms we felt we needed to be able to help our students 'dress for success'.

Our Family Resource Center has a clothes closet and offers other services. I don't know how they know who can qualify for their services because they are funded through governments and grants they have to keep very detailed paper work. I know that they get grants from United Way. Perhaps you could contact United Way for advice on this matter.

I went to private school that did just that. Our school did not purchase the uniforms back however. They simple asked for donations of the old uniforms that had been out grown. Most parnets had no problem getting rid of the uniforms especially since marroon plaid was not "hip" lol. Then about 2 days before the 1st day of school the Sisters (teachers) would sell the uniforms. Our school was small enough that the principal knew who needed free uniforms and that was taken care of descretely. To take care of privacy you may want to ask your principal to contact families that may benifit from free uniforms. a small voucher that could be used would have it remain very descrete. You may even want to concider having a section for "street" cloths and shoes.

We are a uniform school and want to create a clothing bank. We would like to be able to have some kind of scholarship where low income families can swap clothing, but that higher income families would have to pay. We were thinking that since new shirts are $12 we could give them $3 per shirt & sell used shirts for $6.

Anyone have any ideas to organize this. How would we know the families that are low income w/out violating privacy? Is that even possible?

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This place has been such a big help the last ouple of months for us as we get our PTO up & running. Not sure what I have done w/out all the helpful people here!

msychel