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The purpose of our clothing bank is to make kids feel good by providing them with decent clothing. Our Caring for Kids goal is to help raise happy, healthy, productive kids who are ready to learn.

Where: A little house behind Custer Elementary on Custer Blvd.

How to donate: Fill out a clothing bank form. You can download one by clicking here, or get one from a school counselor. You can also download a school supply form here.

Ordering the clothing
We service most of our kids and their families by using Clothing Bank order forms or phone orders. The CB forms are distributed to each site, where the form can be filled out by a parent or a staff member. The form is returned to the transportation department by school courier, mail, fax or delivered by hand. The orders are then filled by volunteers and delivered to the schools or sites.

Clothing donations
Donations of clothing are accepted at the transportation department, administration building, and a few schools and district sites. Some of the clothing is picked up directly from the donors.

Lost and Found
Schools donate their lost and found to CFK. This is our main source of coats for the following year. We now collect from most of our 43 schools. This is a huge undertaking but the good clothing we collect is worth our time.

Summer clothing
During the fall and winter months the summer clothing is stored for the following spring. Arrangements are made with the schools for distribution in the spring, usually during conference week or parent training/family dinner functions.

Donations to other agencies

• Good dress work clothing is given to the Clover Park Technical College for women who are starting a new job and need assistance with clothing.
• All other adult clothing, not appropriate for our kids and families, is given to Western State Hospital.
• Most of the baby clothing is given to Our Lady of Guadeloupe baby center. This group deals directly with pregnant mothers and their babies. We send our families there for maternity and baby needs. We also have family service staff, whom we supply withon site clothing and furniture.

Clothing

• Unfortunately, donated clothing is not always clean, so it needs to be washed, including shoes (as many as 967 loads of clothes were washed in one year). This includes all of the lost and found clothing.
• Because of lack of time, we only mend clothing that is top quality.
• We give clothing that is clean, current, and without stains.
• At the CB the clothing is marked by size to make sorting faster. Some of our volunteers have difficulty in sizing clothes, so the marked clothing makes is easier for them to sort and fill orders.
• Children's clothing is marked by sex and size.(an example b4 or G10)
• Adult clothing is marked the same way but tops are sized small, medium, etc. (an example LL or MXL). Pants are marked by size for ladies and waist size for men. (an example L12 or W34).
• Dress codes have had a major impact on our CB. Each school has a different code and to complete the orders has been a real struggle. In a few years we hope dress code orders will be easier to fill, with donated clothes being uniform style clothing.

All about pants

• Material is purchased to make girl's and boy's pants sizes 4-8. We never get enough good used pants in these sizes.
  • Volunteers cut out and sew the pants
  • It is a two piece pattern with an elastic waist (Stretch and Sew Pattern)
  • Two community member sewed over 500 pairs of pants
  • Some of our low-income schools involved parents in our sewing project. One parent decided to teach other parents in the school the art