We are very fortunate to have space at our school.
We have a bay area where the custodians empty out and we store the clothes there for the week until they pick up on Friday. It is definitely worth the effort to try to work it out.
Even if you can only do it for 3 days, it is worth it.
I can finally tell you that we have done 3 successful clothing drives.
We do one in October and one in April.
Our first sale brought in over $900, second one was $800, third one was over $600.
Not bad considering it is the cost of a flyer and some volunteer help.
We are a very fortunate school that our custodial, office, kitchen, admin., and principal are supportive of our ideas.
Every morning our custodians put a school pick up truck at the end of our parking lot. We have a parent help people get the clothes out of their vehicles and write a receipt if they want it for tax purposes. We do not fill out the amount, that is their repsonsibility. We just right our PTA and number of bags.
I have someone there M-F mornings from 8:20-9:00 AM (drop off times.)
M-Th from 3:00-3:45 PM
W-Th 3:45-6 PM (we will probably reduce this to only one night)
They will schedule you a pick up time and you should have at least 6 people to help you load the truck.
I also recommend you purchase extra garbage bags because some will break and others will come in boxes and stuff.
At the end of each shift, the custodians will then unload the truck and get it ready for the next day.
We advertise the event in the community paper and are getting more people to donate than just our school families.
The company we use is in NJ (we located the pamphlet after all) and very easy to work with.
The contact person's name is Tom- email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
fwfarr;147302 wrote: Has anyone done a free clothing drive for their students? I would love some info on that to possibly implement in our school
I recently started a PTO Donation Closet @ our HS for the less fortunate students. I teamed up w/ the counselors to get closet space and guidance. I created a request form that needs to be filled out by a teacher or counselor
for any student or families requesting help because their identities are confidential. I sent out e-mails to PTO members/teachers/local businesses requesting $, gently used clothes, snack food items, & hygiene products. So far, it has been a success. Over the holiday break, our PTO was able to help 5 families w/ Turkey baskets,hygiene & clothes. Our closet is half full & steady filling up thanks to generous donations. Don't be afraid to reach out & ask for help,because there are lots of generous people willing to help out a good cause.
I am the chair of the flea market committee for our PTA and this will be our second yaer holding our Flea Market fundraiser. Last Year was a great success and we raised 700.00. More importantly we were able to help many people in our community that are less fortunate. We sold our items for between 10 cents and one dollar. You have never seen a happier bunch of Parents and Kids,..It was like Christmas! As last year was such a success this year we will be providing some rides and games for the kids as well as refreshments. We had a couple of families donate the use of some basement and garage space for storage,..we put all the items in large sealed storage bins. All items that were left over were given away at our newly created free day at the end of the school year along with books and other items the school needed to get rid of. Tom
