The Rotary Club of West Austin (RCWA) has traditionally (for probably at least two decades) done a major charitable activity each December called the Christmas Shopping Spree. Well, that was what we had hoped would happen this year, but the pandemic disrupted our event.
No outside mingling with children was allowed at the school, less than half were even attending classes in person, and no bus was made available by AISD. So, we modified our DAP application by proposing an alternative that would still provide needed clothing but without the one-on-one contact as we had been doing with the children during shopping spree.
Thus we modified our DAP application by proposing an alternative that would still provide needed clothing but without the one-on-one contact as we had been doing with the children during shopping spree. With Wooldridge personnel (Delly Sanchez, AISD Parent Support Specialist, and Barbara Rogers) we got a list of clothing and shoes to replenish what has been called “Barbara’s Closet” at Wooldridge. It is a small room containing pants, shirts, jackets, socks, shoes, underwear, etc. that are given out on an as-needed basis if a child comes to school without proper clothing or if one of them has an accident when at school. Delly is very tuned in to their needs. Our District 5870 DAP grant committee approved our modification, so in April the 2020 grant ($1,549) was available for shopping. We supplemented those funds with some from our charitable fund account and did the shopping at a local Target store. Target provided a $50 gift card, and after all the shopping we were able to provide $1,901 worth of clothing, etc. to restock “Barbara’s Closet.”