At Strickland’s Home, we love helping organize kids’ closets. We also love giving back to our community in and around Wilmington. On March 15th, we found a way to do both. In a partnership with the Rotary Club of Downtown Wilmington and Haywood Lineberry of Lineberry Painting, we gave Williston Middle School’s Student Closet an extreme makeover. With the help of our entire team of closet designers and installers, we sourced materials and designed a custom kids’ closet.
The Williston Middle School Student Closet provides students with the clothing and materials they need to succeed. The closet is stocked with khaki pants, shorts and skirts, collared polo shirts, underwear, socks, necessities, school supplies, personal care items, and even alarm clocks. School staff distribute these necessities to students on an emergency basis. The alarm clocks are particularly helpful for students who want to make it to school on time but don’t always have parents able or available to wake them up. Of course, having access to clean clothes is an absolute necessity for students.
Until recently, the students’ closet had little organization. Pants and shirts hung wherever they could fit. Items were piled in storage containers and cardboard boxes, where they inevitably ended up trailing across the floor. We knew the students at Williston deserved an organized and easy-to-use closet, so we put ourselves to work.
Now, Williston Middle School has a professionally organized student closet. Two levels of hanging rods display t-shirts organized by size and color. Above them are shelves of shoes carefully boxed and ordered as well. On the adjacent wall, clean, white symmetrical shelves hold folded and sorted shirts and pants. And, of course, there’s a separate shelving unit for small items like alarm clocks and school supplies as well.
Like all kids, the students at Williston Middle School need order, calm, and care in their lives. A clean and well-organized closet is one place we can help.
We always get satisfaction from our work, but this project was exceptionally gratifying. And, although this was pro bono work, the Strickland’s team was rewarded with invaluable compensation of another kind — the gratitude of Willison students. One student wrote:
Thank you for donating clothes and supplies and other things we need. It is great that you have a nice private closet for us. Some of the students do not have enough money to afford these things and your help gets us these things.
I am in 6th grade and I have a big family. I help my mom around the house with my brothers and sisters. I almost have all A’s and B’s. I am also a good runner. I love math and science and I have good attendance. I like school.
I feel like I can trust the school because they help me with school supplies or clothes … sometimes the same day or the next. The school has helped me get my education by making sure I have what I need to be successful. They told me that your group is one of the groups of people that make sure me and the other kids here have what we need. I wanted to tell you thank you. What you are doing for us makes us feel appreciated. You take time and money and give it to us so we can have more in life. This is important because sometimes parents don’t have enough money for more things after they pay their bills.
Thanks again,
DB, Williston Middle School Student”