July 31, 2018
By: Dwayne Page
After orientation for the new school year, sixth graders at DeKalb Middle School and their parents got to shop for clothes Monday evening as the Saint Bernard Clothing Market opened for business.
Suzette Barnes and Angela Johnson, sponsors of the DMS Student Council said the clothing market was started last summer as a way of serving students who were in need of clothes and shoes.
“Last summer we had a vision of providing clothes and shoes to our students. We have several students in our building who wear the same outfit multiple days a week or their shoes are falling apart. We talked about what we wanted to do but didn’t know how it would go. We asked for donations and the community supplied us with those donations which we were very grateful for. We had our student council students come in and help sort and hang the clothes and group them by sizes which was community service hours for those students and then we went from there,” said Barnes.
After the clothes were collected, the school set aside days where all students in the 6th through 8th grade at the school could shop for clothes and shoes free of charge.
Clothes and shoes were again collected over the summer to continue the market again this school year.
Johnson said the market has served a great need.
“Last year we had a grandparent who came in to shop for a pair of shoes for her grandson. She said he desperately needed a pair of shoes. We had a teacher here who looked through all the shoes we had for boys and we had none to fit him. She (grandparent) said I think he will have to take a pair of girls shoes because he is in desperate need of shoes. At that point the teacher said no we will make sure that we get him a pair of shoes and we did,” said Johnson.
Students will have more opportunities to shop the clothing market this week.
Seventh and eighth graders will be able to shop on registration day, Wednesday August 1. Another day of shopping is set for Thursday, August 2 for any students who were unable to participate Monday and Wednesday.