Small contributions, big impact

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Commentary by Brian Sawa

On Dec. 7, we wrapped up the 13th annual Westfield Clothing Drive and Giveaway at Washington Woods Elementary School. During the four-hour event, more than 100 adults (with lots of kids) were able to take home bundles of high-quality clothing – sometimes for themselves and oftentimes for others. During the event, we also were able to collect more than $200 for the Amanda Strong Foundation to help Westfield-area families with food and gifts during the holiday season.

Every year, we look at the enormous pile of clothes to sort and fold, and inevitably someone (and usually more than one) asks, “And why are we doing this again?” Without fail, the answer to that question always seems to find us, and over the 13 years of this event, we’ve received so many answers:

• It’s the volunteers who, some struggling with their own losses, come every day to sort and fold because knowing they’ve helped someone else provides them with a sense of purpose.

• It’s the families we see, having just taken on the incredible responsibility of being foster parents, but whose children came to them with little more than the clothes on their backs.

• It’s those who come through who are barely finished being kids themselves. Now with kids of their own, they are finding ways to make it work.

• It’s the many, many times neighbors have come to find clothes for neighbors who have experienced sudden, unthinkable tragedies such as fires and losses of loved ones.

• It’s the tearful stories we hear from families who have left their homes suddenly out of fear with the clothes they were wearing and nothing more.

And that’s only a sampling of what we’ve heard over the years. If you spend a couple of hours talking with the people in the room on giveaway day, I’m sure you would hear similar stories many times over.

So many times, when we thank people for contributing to this event, they respond with some version of “I didn’t do much …” “I just …” or “I only …” When we get our own students down to help during set-up week, we try to show them how a bunch of people making little contributions can make a big difference to others. We know first-hand that to those who benefit from this event, those contributions are much more than a “just” or an “only.” They mattered to the people who came this year and every year prior. On behalf of them, thank you.

Brian Sawa is a counselor at Washington Woods Elementary School and organizes the annual clothing drive. He can be contacted at [email protected].


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