Salvation Army makes clothes closet donation to SOCSD

The Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District got some more help for its clothes closet Thursday.

The Salvation Army donated new pairs of socks and underwear to the closet at Sudduth Elementary Thursday morning. The clothes will be available district-wide to needy students. The Salvation Army’s donation follows a donation of sundry items from the Progressive Starkville Network last week. Second Baptist Church will also make a donation of school uniforms in the coming week.

“We’re happy to have the Salvation Army come out and give us such wonderful donations,” said SOCSD social worker Faye Smith. “We’ve had different agencies in the past donate, but we’re just so thankful for them this morning.”

Salvation Army Service Center Manager Katie Walker said the organization wanted to do something for back to school in Starkville.

“We felt like we could contribute to the clothes closet, because that’s something that throughout the school year is utilized by the social workers,” Walker said.

She said she learned of the importance of socks and underwear for the closet from conversations with district social workers.

“We decided to just do a do a donation drive for just new packs of underwear and new packs of socks for girls and boys, so we did that through the month of July,” Walker said.

The drive netted 37 packs of underwear, 40 packs of socks and three packs of white undershirts. Donation boxes were set up at the Salvation Army Family Store and at the Claiborne at Adelaide senior living center.

“I’m very encouraged by the response that we got from the community to give back,” Walker said. “Usually our request for helping low-income families is at Christmastime, but we know that need doesn’t stop just at Christmas, and back to school is an important time as well.”

The Salvation Army plans to continue to help the school district through similar drives.