The Mitten Success!!

HEYYYYY guys,

Welcome back!! It’s honestly been a really rough month, and it felt like one too many thorns, but I'm just thankful that it's now winter break and I’m finally back home from school. Junior year midterms were something that I don’t think anything could’ve really prepared me for. To sum it up in one word, COOKED.

However, one notable achievement was the Mitten's first successful clothing drive.

For those of you who don't know, the Mitten is an NGO that I run. It is a collective of high school students who want to help combat clothing insecurity by hosting clothing drives around the world. If I'm being completely honest, I didn't realize how hard it was to run this NGO until I took over this year, and Hanna, last year's executive director, graduated. I feel like I'm still on a bit of a learning curve on how to organize people, but this clothing drive felt like overcoming one small hurdle.

Us preparing the bins

Honestly, this was one of my most proudest accomplishments to date. I used my school's community service club, which I’m also a part of, to host a clothing drive at my school. I placed bins in each dorm for around 3-4 weeks and collected the donations before break.

A bin placed inside one of the dorms

I think this was a GIGANTIC win for both the community service club, Paws For Cause, and the Mitten. Overall, we were able to collect, I think, around 110 lbs of clothes, or around 12 garbage bags, which is pretty damn awesome. While I would’ve loved to organize my own relocation of these clothes for those in need, especially at homeless shelters, my life was a bit hectic, and I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it. In the end, I donated it to an organization called Circle of Hope located in Needham, MA.

some of the trash bags we collected

They’re honestly a reallllyyy inspirational organization. My fellow Paws For Cause heads and I collected and bagged all the clothes, and with support from our teacher/mentor, we headed in a van to drop off the clothes. When we arrived, we received a tour of the storehouse and got to learn more about how the organization works. It was so crazy to see how they can supply clothing and sanitation products for infants all the way up to adults and the elderly. They literally had rows of bins with every imaginable good possible.

A photo I took of my co heads @ circle of hope

I was honestly so happy that the collection from our drive ended up here because, from my visit, I could tell they genuinely make a large impact on their community.

Hopefully, for the Mittens' next clothing drive at St. Mark’s, we’ll be able to partner up with another organization or gather students so that we can actually sort and distribute the clothing ourselves to be more involved with the community.

Anyways, I know it has definitely been a while since I posted, but I just wanted to come back on a positive note, and I will definitely try to post more frequently in 2026!!!!

See you in the next blog.