At 14 middle schools in central Ohio, teens whose families can’t afford stylish backpacks, hair products or new clothes have been able to concentrate on classes instead of those other things.
“It sounds kind of silly, but if you think about being a 13-year-old…,” Nicole Hebert-Ford, a former teacher, soon-to-be school counselor and co-founder of Student Success Stores, said she likes to remind people. “We’re able to keep those small problems small.”
Since their start at Champion Middle School, Columbus Global Academy and Mifflin Middle School in 2017, Student Success Stores have opened more branches within Columbus City Schools and Whitehall City Schools buildings with higher percentages of children living in poverty.
The stores offer not just dress-code-compliant clothing, they also are stocked with underclothing and socks, coats and hats, hygiene products and school supplies. The items are donated by businesses, collected during support drives or purchased with financial contributions, and they’re free to children.
The idea behind them − first pitched at a 2016 United Way of Central Ohio “Pitch to Ditch Poverty” event − is that young people worried about their clothes or hair or other things that adults tell them not to worry about will be distracted from their studies.
“Our goal is to help students focus on their learning,” Hebert-Ford said. “In order to do that, our goal is to meet students’ basic needs.”
To date, the Student Success Stores have provided more than 37,000 items to young shoppers. There is no eligibility test for students individually; if there’s a store in their school, all students are allowed to schedule a visit if their parent or guardian hasn’t opted out.
Stores are placed in discreet locations inside each school, Hebert-Ford said, and they’re carefully set up so young people don’t feel like they’re rummaging through bins of cast-offs. Clothing reflects students’ different cultural backgrounds, and hair products are available for different types of hair.
And who decides what styles of clothing will appeal to the young shoppers?
“I get a lot of help from our college interns,” Herbert-Ford said.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Student Success Stores offer clothing and supplies for Columbus teens
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