Carefully sorting through colorful, donated children’s clothing, Christie Webber and more than a dozen of her colleagues from Norwood’s HMI Performance Incentives happily returned to volunteer at Cradles to Crayons after a two-year absence due to the Covid pandemic.
The nonprofit, located at 281 Newtonville Avenue, recently marked 20 years of providing donated garments and other essentials to children up to age 12.
Webber said for many of her coworkers the volunteer work “kind of hits home,” because they also have kids.
While HMI staff inspected apparel at one table in the nonprofit’s Giving Factory Warehouse, “Champion Volunteer” Madeline Amorosi sorted shirts, coats, and pants at another station, a task the Newton resident has been performing for eight years.
When Amorosi, a retiree, looked for a place to donate her time, she said she liked the caring atmosphere at Cradles to Crayons and supports its mission.
“I was appalled at how many kids need clothing in a wealthy state like Massachusetts,” she said
That need increased during the pandemic. When volunteers were not allowed to help inside the warehouse for health and safety reasons, Amorosi would pick up bags of clothing to take home, sort, and return to the Newtonville facility.
Now the nonprofit can host as many as 250 volunteers per day, as it had before Covid hit, and it’s always looking for more.
Twenty years and needs keep increasing
Families’ needs only grew during the pandemic, and Cradles to Crayons worked as it has for the past 20 years to meet those needs.
“Clothing has always been in huge demand and now we serve tens of thousands more children every year,” said executive director Aubrey Henderson via email. “What has changed over the years is the need for additional basic essentials, including hygiene kits, diapers and school supplies. [These needs have] grown tremendously over the last 20 years, versus items like toys which we no longer distribute due to the focus for families of simply getting the basic needs covered.”
During the height of the pandemic in 2020, outdoor donation containers closed for about three months due to safety precautions. However, they’re now open 24/7. Henderson provided this list of needed items and this online map to find drop-off locations in addition to the donation bins at the nonprofit’s Giving Factory Warehouse at 281 Newtonville Avenue.
In 20 years, Cradles to Crayons (including its other locations in Chicago and Philadelphia) has supplied families with more than 3 million packages of clothing, shoes, diapers, and school supplies, according to the organization.
Cradles to Crayons Massachusetts currently works with over 100 partner organizations, including Newton Public Schools, Family Access of Newton, and the City’s Health and Human Services Department, according to the nonprofit.
“My hope is that people start to understand that clothing is a basic necessity for all children and not having appropriate clothing harms a child’s health, safety, and self-esteem – factors known to impact a child’s academic performance and long-term success,” said Henderson.
“We know there are over 400,000 children in Massachusetts and more than 20 million American children who are at risk of being clothing insecure and we need to do better in helping these children thrive,” she said.
Learn how you can help
According to the Cradles to Crayons website, “A volunteer shift in The Giving Factory Warehouse involves hands-on processing of the donated goods that flow in on a regular basis. Each station in our warehouse includes inspecting, sorting, and packaging donations to ultimately be distributed to the children we serve.”
Those interested can learn more and apply at www.cradlestocrayons.org.
“The best way for the community to help at this moment is to donate children’s clothing items,” the nonprofit stated. “We are currently experiencing a shortage of product in our warehouse and need donations of new and gently-used clothing items in all sizes in order to meet the needs of struggling families facing the cold weather ahead.”
