Patrick Polencheck
It’s summer in our wonderful SaddleBrooke community, and many of our dedicated volunteers are gone for the season. But there is still much work behind the scene to be done prior to reopening for the fall/winter school year. This year’s opening will be on Thursday, September 17, and continue through November 23, 2015. Therefore, to prepare for this season our four buyers are hard at work determining the items for their shopping list in preparation for their buying trip to Las Vegas in August. Based on the 2,732 children we clothed during our 2014-15 session, our team of buyers, Jo Sauvegeau, Jeanette Wollinka, Nancy Moore and Karen Haddock, are working diligently to assess our needs for this session by taking into account some of the latest fashion trends that children from pre-K through grade 8 would like to wear to school. Starting with underwear, socks, footwear, shirts, pants hats and jackets for each child is one large order. That is just for starters! Once these items are purchased, they now have to be processed. That is where our receiving managers, Richard and Lori Snead, see to it that all the clothing is verified and then sorted into like sizes and binned for its trip to the Kids’ Closet in Mammoth, 30 miles north of SaddleBrooke. After they arrive our two warehouse managers, Pat Schlote and Melanie Stout, will check it in and place it in the appropriate sections. This is a big task taking many hours of work so that once Kids’ Closet opens for business, everything is ready to go. What would we do without these dedicated volunteers? There are many more volunteer jobs available. If you are interested, please contact SaddleBrooke Community Outreach located in Suite “L” in the commercial center or call 520-825-3302. Kids’ Closet is open on Mondays, Thursdays and occasionally Saturdays.