MITCHELL Walking into the Caring Closet room at the new Mitchell High School reveals a long, narrow room with high ceilings. Shelves stacked with clothing, food items and hygiene products tower upward, and more racks of clothing line the walls. It’s a tightly organized space, and on first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that the room is bigger than the space the Caring Closet occupied in the old building. But you would be wrong. “It is much smaller. We had to downsize what we have for overflow,” Michelle Loecker, a volunteer with the Caring Closet and MHS food pantry, which shares the same room off the main thoroughfare at the school, told the Mitchell Republic. “But it’s nice to have it all under one roof.” It’s a new look for the program, but it’s still fulfilling its goal of serving Mitchell students. The Caring Closet program, which has been up and running at Mitchell High School since 2018, distributes items such as clothing, hygiene and household products to students who may be in need of assistance in their school or home life. A student who may have an upcoming job interview can come and pick up a used sports coat, or another may be able to acquire some extra warm winter clothing when winter strikes. The program operated out of a handful of rooms at the old Mitchell High School, but was consolidated into one room in the new building. That means the space is technically smaller, but everything is together, making organization and inventory more compact, even if it doesn’t have quite the floor space of its old home. “(The old space) was a great space to have because it allowed the program to function. But it was not ideal because it was split up into so many little rooms. Here (students) don’t have to go from room to room when they’re doing their shopping,” Loecker said. “We had some work days over at the old high school to go through things to keep or repurpose, that kind of thing.” It took some planning, but eventually the new room was filled, organized and opened up to students in the district just as it had been before. T-shirts of all sizes fill racks toward the back of the room, many of them sporting the Mitchell High School Kernels logo. Winter coats line another wall, ready for a student to grab off the wall and try on for size. Woolen hats and gloves are stacked nearby. Many items a student may not have access to at home are available for the taking here. “We have sizes from all the way from extra small kids, which would be your 4 and 5, all the way up to adult 3X. Jackets, coats, shirts, sweatshirts, jeans, socks, shoes. For the colder months we have hats and mittens,” Loecker said. The school food pantry is set up toward the front of the room, and it is the first section of the new space visitors see when they enter. This program is similar to the long-running Mitchell Weekend Snack Pack Program, which puts easy-to-prepare snacks into the hands of children for the weekends when their parents are working or there isn’t food in the house. The MHS Food Pantry performs a similar role but for high school students who don’t qualify for the Snack Pack program. In this section, breakfast cereals, ramen noodles, canned fruit and vegetables and even some frozen meat products are available for students whose cupboards may be a little thin at home. The available products are generally simple, easy-to-prepare foods that can be made in a pinch with modest kitchen skills. Like the Caring Closet, the food pantry is powered by donations, Loecker said. “We provide pizzas, chicken nuggets, lunch meat, cheese, hamburger, turkey. We’ve had a couple of really nice donations from the community. Obviously that is huge. And with the hamburger we provide spaghetti sauce and noodles,” Loecker said. “We have Hamburger Helper that they can use to make a meal, and I know (program coordinator) Jodi (Reiners) has videos out on YouTube instructing on how to brown hamburger.” Also nestled among the stacks are hygiene products, such as toothpaste, deodorant and more. The group even prepares basic school kits for students who may be starting the school year without the essentials. Loecker said students who use the Caring Closet are grateful for the help, and not just for themselves. She recalled one student visiting the group mentioned he didn’t have anything to give his mother for her birthday. They found a great option right off the shelf. “And we said, ‘How about if you make her a cake?’” Loecker said, smiling. “And he said that would be awesome. We have these kits that have cake mix and it comes with frosting. So he took one.” The Caring Closet and the food pantry are a vital part of supporting Mitchell School District students, said Justin Siemsen, principal for Mitchell High School. The move from the old building was a challenge, but the end result was an all-in-one stop for students that allows for convenient access for high school students, and for elementary students who sometimes have items from the inventory delivered to their schools. He praised the volunteers and Reiners for the continued work. “(I was impressed with) the creativity on their part and some of the ingenuity to get some shelving and different things like that for all the tremendous amount of donations,” Siemsen said. A well-fed, well-clothed student is better-equipped to study, learn and concentrate on their schoolwork compared to students who are hungry or underclothed. Siemesen said he was proud the district could provide a permanent place for the volunteers with the Caring Closet and the food pantry to assist them when they need it. It’s all for the benefit of the Mitchell School District student body, Siemsen said. “It’s not reasonable to think students can focus on their education when their basic needs aren’t being met. If we can help those students meet those basic needs, then the likelihood of them being more successful in the classroom increases. So by having the Caring Closet there and having the food pantry there allows the student to not have to worry about that part of their lives as much,” Siemsen said. “We want them to be able to focus on education, and if we can help bridge that gap, then we’re doing them a service.”.
https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/local/mitchells-caring-closet-has-a-new-space-with-same-mission
