One student in Corpus Christi is leaving her legacy on her community before she graduates.
Suhawni Narang is a senior at Ray High School. Last year, she volunteered at the CCISD Clean Kids Closet. The Clean Kids Closet provides food, clothing and toiletries for the district's most highly mobile students. That includes homelessness, unaccompanied, foster care and refugee students.
Suhawni saw how meaningful the closet was to others and felt inspired to start her own project called the W.B Ray Texan Clothing Drive.
"They didn’t really have a lot of stuff because people wold be donating to other organizations like Salvation Army and Purple Door, which are all super good causes, but I really wanted to give back to centrally my community, the people that surround me," Narang said.
The Clean Kids Closet tells us 1,500 families are registered as homeless or in transition in CCISD. In the last month, Suhawni received over 350 articles of clothing for her project. She also raised over $2,000 for the closet with a GoFund Me page me for those who did not have items to donate. All the money and donations she gets will be given to the CCISD Clean Kids Closet.
Suhawni’s english teacher Ruth Whitmore said she was asked if her classroom could be used to drop off student donations. She was all for it.
"It is a service oriented project and it is student driven. I'm all for supporting students who are active in their community," Whitmore said.
Suhawni says her time volunteering at the closet helped her understand the need for a spin-off project like hers, but more importantly for the lasting impact that it will make.
"It sounds so minor, like you’re just raising clothes for people, but I feel like clothes directly make an impact on your confidence. Getting to pick from what they like versus what’s available will bolster kids confidence and make them more ready to take on the day and grow," Narang said.
Suhawni plans to keep the project open through June for those interested in donating. She hopes to receive at least a thousand donations of clothing by the time her project wraps up. People can donate to Ray High School's front office or call (737) 285-2972.
The City of Corpus Christi will be conducting a community survey on housing, homelessness and community development. The City of Corpus Christi encourages anyone interested in participating in the survey to visit surveymonkey.com. The survey will remain open until May 31 and all responses are anonymous.
