A sixth-grade dance costs about $7,500. To help cover it, the parents of Shaw Avenue’s sixth-graders turned to the community’s closets.
The Shaw Avenue Sixth Grade Committee held a clothing and household item drive Oct. 23 next to the Shaw Avenue Pre-K playground. The committee collected household textiles, books, clothing, shoes, handbags and small household goods. The bags and boxes piled up until the committee had to send for a U-Hauxl to carry them away.
The donations go to Savers, a second-hand used clothing and thrift store. The company pays donations by the pound.
Savers distributes the items on Long Island and in other areas and sends what it can’t use overseas. The money helps cover the dues families pay for the dance, cap and tassel, yearbook, class trip and class shirt.
Some families are facing hardships, from gas prices to food costs, said Jennifer Narby, who heads fundraising for the committee.
“If parents don’t pay the full amount of the dues, the money has to come from somewhere,” Narby said. “And we will never let any child be left behind.”
The committee, a group of parents who have been working together since June, is separate from the school’s PTA, which serves pre-K through fifth grade. A new group of parents will take over next year.
“I think the goal now is just to make the sixth grade as memorable as possible, and make sure that they can have an amazing year,” said Vanessa Letamendi, the committee’s liaison.
The students have worked for it too. This summer, they spent Wednesday nights at the concerts on the Village Green, walking through the crowd to sell snacks for $2 or $3 apiece. To help the kids feel more confident, Narby said, the moms put price tags on the back of each item. Before long, the children were working the crowd on their own, and by the fourth or fifth concert, people recognized them.
“This is for you. You want your dance. You want your trip. You’ve got to participate,” Narby said the parents told them.
The work took time out of the parents’ own schedules, Narby said, including shopping for the snacks outside of the concerts.
“It’s possible,” she said. “You just have to have the parents that want to do it.”
The committee is also raffling baskets it made by hand. Last year’s sixth-grade committee passed along money to help this year’s group get started, and this group plans to give whatever is left over to next year’s class.
A cookie sale, a chocolate sale and a plant sale in May are also planned.
