Jeannette school closet helps students in need

Rather than being filled with desks, chairs and books, a second-floor room at Jeannette McKee Elementary School has shelves of pants, racks of shirts and skirts, boxes of new tennis shoes, hats, gloves and some toiletries.

The former classroom was converted this year into the Jeannette McKee School Closet, where students in need can select from free clothes, shoes and backpacks that are gently used, as well as new undergarments, hats and gloves.

“There is a need in the community for something like this. We have everything that a child would need to come to school,” said Lindsay Artman Schulte of Jeannette, who helped to organize the closet.

Schulte, whose daughter is in first grade, said she got the idea for the ‘closet’ after volunteering with the Parent Teacher Organization at a holiday event last year to help students in need. Some of the students in the K-6 school wrote letters to Santa asking for shoes, Schulte said.

“That broke my heart. I just can’t imagine being a parent and not being able to put shoes on my kids’ feet or worrying about it,” Schulte said. “And they weren’t asking for anything elaborate” in the way of brand-name shoes, she added.

Schulte asked the school board in the spring for permission to use a classroom to create the closet for students, who have a dress code.

“Our goal is for no student to ever need a clean uniform or pair of shoes,” Schulte said.

The closet is in a classroom that has been vacant since the 2017, when Jeannette moved the seventh- and eighth-graders to the high school, said James Raible, McKee elementary principal. The board granted permission to the PTO in April to use the former classroom and janitors worked during the summer to clear the room.

“It was bare space as of Aug. 1,” Schulte said.

Schulte filled it with donations from churches, organizations, businesses and families of district children. Donations were dropped off at baskets placed at churches in Jeannette, as well as herSchulte’s own home. Elliott Co. in purchased racks for the clothes and a Greensburg family donated $3,000, some of which was used to purchase shoes, Schulte said.

Christ the Divine Teacher School in Latrobe donated many clothes and one family brought a trailer and cargo van full of clothes, Schulte said.

Since the closet opened in September, 104 students have benefited, Schulte said. Teachers and the guidance counselor can bring children to the room, and parents can make an appointment, Schulte said. Students who obtain items remain anonymous, Schulte said.

School guidance counselor Bethany Faulk said she sees the need for the service, since so many students come from economically disadvantaged homes. At McKee, 97 percent of the students in 2018 qualified for free lunches, according to the state Department of Education.

Faulk, who started at McKee in the 2018-2019 school year, said she is getting to know the families and understand their needs.

“There are a lot of times when we reach out to parents and ask them to let us know if they need help,” she said. “They really appreciate it.”