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A movement that started several decades ago to bring awareness to clothing insecurity is at the core of a Northland nonprofit.
The movement was spearheaded by a nonprofit organization, Note in the Pocket, based in Raleigh, North Carolina.
According to the organization’s website, two out of five children in the U.S. are clothing insecure.
“We have awareness days for lots of health and human service reasons. We need one for clothing insecurity, because it is such a huge issue and not a lot of people are aware,” Northland Clothing Center executive director Marjie Siegfried-Stuber said. “Every single person on this planet deserves to have clothing that protects them from the elements, that helps them obtain and maintain employment, that helps them avoid bullying in their schools, that helps them feel good about themselves.”
Since 1959, the Northland Clothing Center has been offering free clothing and shoes to anyone in the Northland in need. All of their clients are referred to them by school social workers, human service agencies, or local shelters.
“When this organization started back in 1959, they served a few hundred people a year. We’re at almost 3,000 a year,” Siegfried-Stuber said. “We’re still here because that need still exists. In fact, in some ways it exists even more today than it did then. The community is larger, the needs are greater, and there aren’t as many resources keyed into that need, that specific need.”
Siegfried-Stuber says they saw a huge spike in need coming out of the COVID 19 pandemic, and different seasons like back-to-school and the winter months also bring an uptick
“Prices have gone up — prices for food, prices for housing, prices for school supplies, prices for clothing. So people are having to pick and choose where to put their money,” Siegfried-Stuber said. “We provide all of our clothing free of charge to our clients, from hat and coats to socks and shoes and everything in between.”
Staff at the Northland Clothing Center believe what people wear directly affects their confidence, dignity and protection. Whether they like stripes, polka dots, florals or solids, giving them that autonomy to choose makes all the difference. That is why the center is set up like a store front.
“It’s a very intentional effort to give dignity back to the people who have lost dignity in some other ways,” Siegfried-Stuber said.
Noha Shalabi and Christina Parretta are both family advocates with the federal Head Start program. They say governmental assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and WIC do not pay for clothes, and that is why they send their clients to the Northland Clothing Center.
Families can be automatically eligible through the Head Start program if they are in SNAP or receive Supplemental Security Income.
“We definitely have a high need. There are lots of kids on our wait list for Head Start, and the need just keeps growing,” Shalabi said. “The kids come to school the next day, and they are so excited to show off all the things that they got to pick out.”
Families can visit the center every six months. Each appointment has to be scheduled. Every client is paired with their own personal helper to shop.
“A lot of people don’t know about the program, so I let them know that this is something that's available for the kids and the families. And then they can get in usually within just a couple weeks,” Parretta said.
Every child takes home a new pair of shoes, and every person new underwear. Working parents also get $50 shoe vouchers to go buy a brand new pair of shoes from a store they choose.
“If you think clothing doesn’t matter, throw all your clothes away and see how you feel about that,” Siegfried-Stuber said.
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