Assistance League Helps Students With Summer Styling

Assistance League of Northern Virginia’s New Clothing for Kids Program strives to help improve students’ self-esteem by ensuring they have clothing appropriate for the seasons. The nonprofit provided more than 3300 pieces of clothing and more than 200 pairs of sneakers during the past school year to meet that goal. Those items included sweatshirts, sweatpants, leggings, shirts, sweaters, underwear, socks, and sneakers, as well as winter jackets, hats, gloves, and scarves. Assistance League’s marvelous fashionistas were not satisfied with those impressive statistics and devised an ingenious way to end the school year for a few select students. The New Clothing Team wanted to provide complete outfits to six students at each of the schools they serve to help those pupils get a jump on summer. School contacts provided specific sizes and color preferences for their students who might have had an especially challenging year, experienced great hardship, or needed an extra ‘pick-me-up.’ With those details, the Clothing Team purchased complete outfits for the students selected by the school counselors: shirts, shorts or pants, shoes, underwear & socks. They put those items in colorful gift bags and included a personal note to each student wishing them a good summer and hoping they enjoy their clothing.

The school counselors were very receptive to the idea and all indications are the students who received the outfits were delighted with their unexpected end-of-school-year bonus. The students’ joy with their new items was a bonus for Assistance League members.