Did you know there are over 350,000 children in need across Massachusetts and New Hampshire?
These children depend heavily on organizations like Catie’s Closet to help meet their basic needs for clothing, food, and other essentials that provide health, safety, and confidence.
Like other non-profit organizations that help children, Catie’s Closet relies on support from individuals, businesses, and foundations across the communities we serve and beyond.
Community members and caring companies host clothing and toiletry drives, volunteer at our Distribution Centers, support our fundraising efforts, and make generous monetary donations to our cause.
We work diligently to steward donations carefully and strategically to sufficiently meet the needs of students who are desperate for our help.
That’s why we apply 90 cents of every dollar we spend is directly to our programming.
Support for our programs helps give all children access to the essentials that foster mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
We currently serve 90,000+ children in Merrimack Valley, Boston, and Western MA. We are on a mission to say “YES” to all children who ask for our help.
With proper funding, our services can reach far and wide, across our region and nation.
Catie’s Closet operates two key programs and several other initiatives that provide children in need with life-changing access to clothing and basic necessities.
For every dollar we spend, 90 cents goes directly to supporting these programs and initiatives.
Our direct services include the In-School Closet Program and SOS Urgent Response Program. These serve the same mission but are tailored to reach children in different ways.
In-School Closet Program
In 2010, we opened our first In-School Closet to serve the students at Lowell High School. It was meant to be one special project, but we quickly realized how widespread the need was throughout our community.
Today we operate 140+ closets in 11 school districts across Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Students in grades PreK-8 can shop discreetly for the items they need free of charge. There is no other litmus test, no limit on the number of items they can take, and students can visit their closets as often as they need.
Children who have instant access to seasonally appropriate, in-style, well-fitting clothes, and undergarments, socks, hygiene products, school supplies, and more, worry less, focus on school, and feel good about themselves.
According to our latest student surveys, 93% of students experience a positive impact on their self-esteem when they have access to clothing and basic necessities inside their schools.
Interested in supporting our In-School Closet Program? Become a School Success Sponsor or Confidence Creator.
Learn more about our In-School Closet Program.
SOS Urgent Response Program
Our SOS Urgent Response Program is designed to meet the needs of children enduring a sudden transition in their living situation. Many cases include foster home transitions, fire victims, and becoming newcomers to the area or country.
The needs of these children often require urgent attention to ensure they have clothing and other necessities.
When our team receives an urgent order, they quickly fill a customized package with two weeks’ worth of clothing and essentials that meet the child’s specific needs. We strive to deliver the SOS Urgent Response orders to the child within 24-28 hours.
Learn more about our SOS Urgent Response Program.
Other critical initiatives
In addition to these two programs, Catie’s Closet offers several initiatives to meet the additional needs of students. For example, Haircare For All, provides products for natural and textured hair inside our closets and urgent orders.
We also offer a “Back on the Bus” Program, granting 1,000 Lowell High School students safe and reliable transportation to school each year, and a “Bridge to Basics” Program, which partners with other community organizations to provide 1,500 children who do not have access to our in-school closets with essentials they need to thrive in and out of the classroom.
Clothing, toiletries, undergarments, and shoes are foundational for a child’s healthy development and future success.
Without clothing and other basic necessities, children’s self-esteem suffers, their physical health is compromised, and their chances to succeed in school are limited.
That’s why we strive every day with an unwavering commitment to provide basic necessities to children in need helping them achieve optimal mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
You may be wondering what children do if they don’t have proper access to these essentials.
We see children who wear the same outfit and underwear over and over again with no other options. Some go to school with clothes that don’t fit, have stains, tears, and holes, or worse, they don’t go to school at all.
Many kids are forced to walk to school in the middle of winter with shorts and flip-flops or sneakers kept intact with duct tape.
Students who are on their periods either skip school or use unsanitary methods to care for their periods because they don’t have adequate menstrual supplies.
Children have also come to us with absolutely nothing. They do not own a single pair of underwear and wear nothing under their clothing. They have no soap, shampoo, or toothbrush to maintain proper hygiene.
Children who experience these situations also endure other burdens that come with poverty, homelessness, and other crises.
You can imagine the culmination of these inadequacies makes children feel like they are not as worthy as their peers and it deeply impacts their outlook on the world and how they see themselves in it.
But with the power of 90 cents per dollar, we help children thrive despite their challenges.
Support for our programs means students have immediate access to the essentials they need in their schools and communities.
They can feel lifted from their struggles, see opportunities to achieve a brighter future, express themselves with unapologetic confidence, and break the cycle of poverty.
Where does the remaining ten cents go?
Our model is established to be low-cost so that every dollar makes a direct difference in students’ lives. We keep our overhead low by leveraging free space in schools, free donations in-kind donations from the community, and over 400 volunteers to help us process donations and manage our closets.
The remaining ten cents funds administration and fundraising, so we can employ a dedicated team to maintain our Distribution Centers, fill our closets, and raise funds to continue our work and expand our reach.
