SGA Senators-at-Large Aiyanna Quinones and Isabella Polombo have been running a clothing drive for UCCS students since last October, a project they are hoping to make a permanent resource on campus.
The drive happens every Friday from 1-4 p.m. in the Student Life Lounge and provides students with casual apparel for all seasons.
The senators created Winter Break kits last semester to provide students with winter clothes on top of food items and personal care products. Quinones and Polombo gave these kits to 110 students in total.
Polombo thinks it is important for students to have access to the professional and day-to-day clothing they need.
“There’s a huge student need for clothing that’s accessible to them. And, although there is currently Clyde’s Closet, they focus more on professional clothing, which is important, but it’s not really general clothing you get to wear every day. And that’s what we saw as a need, especially with inflation going on,” Polombo said.
Quinones also thinks that students should have access to clothing. “Even though clothing is not viewed as immediate like food and shelter, [it] can do a lot for a person,” she said.
Right now, Quinones and Polombo are the two main people working on the clothing drive. They have not had enough consistent help running the project, so they have been trying to acquire advertising to recruit more student volunteers.
The two senators are also struggling to store clothes because they do not have enough storage space available for them. “We have about eight packed boxes filled to the top with clothes, and we had to tape over it to make more space,” Quinones said.
Polombo said she is concerned that lack of storage may prevent them from making the project last. “Without storage, it’s really hard to maintain things … without that factor, we are unable to make it a permanent thing,” she said.
However, Polombo also said that she is hopeful they will get the storage they need through advertising and outreach. “Students need this. The more attention we get, the better chance that we have of getting acknowledgement for a space.”
Both senators are determined to find more funding through campus organizations and donations, and they want to use that money to expand clothing variety and get a bigger storage space.
“At the end of the day, we are trying to take the load off the burden of students here at UCCS,” Polombo said.
Students interested in volunteering for the clothing drive can email [email protected] or [email protected] for more information.
