Houghton-Kearney Elem. Clothing Closet reopens to serve students on campus and across the district

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- From the outside, it whitethorn beryllium inconspicuous connected campus.

But erstwhile you unfastened the door, you tin spot conscionable however overmuch the Clothing Closet astatine Houghton Kearney Elementary School holds.

Inside, apparel are hung arsenic precocious arsenic the ceiling.

There are belts and backpacks on with hygiene kits and hairbands.

"The value of the covering closets is to marque definite that our students consciousness comfy and acceptable to larn each time successful the classroom," Foundation For Central Schools Executive Director Serena Dohi said.

The instauration helps conscionable further needs that students and families person beyond education.

There are 5 covering closets astatine antithetic schoolhouse sites, but they service the full Central Unified School District.

"So erstwhile a kid is successful need, we person a telephone retired to our covering closets district-wide, and we present person 5 of those, and everyone benignant of looks successful their covering closets and checks for sizes," Dohi said.

Dohi says 95% of the covering is new.

That's acknowledgment to partnerships and donors from the Kaiser Permanente benefits programme and the Assistance League of Fresno.

The brand-name shoes that are inactive successful the container are acknowledgment to Sole4Souls.

Teachers and Family Outreach Liaisons notation children to the closet successful hopes of supporting the pupil with items they whitethorn need.

"But the thought astir it is that they're getting a manus up and they're ne'er feeling similar they are that past thought of the day," Dohi said.

The schoolhouse antecedently had the covering closet successful the library, but needed much space.

District-wide, the covering closets served astir 300 students during the 2024-2025 schoolhouse year.

Dohi says they privation to proceed to enactment students' basal needs truthful they tin absorption and larn successful the classroom.

"So it's precise important that they consciousness seen, they consciousness heard and they consciousness loved. When they spell into that covering closet, and they get thing that they're going to deterioration and love," Dohi said.

If parents request immoderate of these resources for their children, they tin scope retired to their schoolhouse tract directly.

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