A way to help
Northshore Elementary School students work with Compassion Closet, collect around 4,000 socks
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Northshore Elementary School student council members gathered with their sock collection for Compassion Closet Wednesday afternoon, March 27, in the school. - Tammy Cheek
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Northshore Elementary School fifth-grade teacher Natalie Pratt, student council advisor, helps fifth-grader Josiah Hair with a sock sorting decision during a council meeting Wednesday afternoon, March 27, in the school. - Tammy Cheek
Northshore Elementary School’s student council and its students have been working with Compassion Closet, recently collecting around 4,000 socks for the non-profit, 11020 Kingston Pike in Farragut.
Wednesday, March 27, council members gathered to sort the socks before delivering them.
“This is so amazing,” fifth-grade student council member Dery Whitehuad said.
“I’m so glad to help out the Compassion Closet because I know they’ve been struggling with their socks collection, so it makes me really happy to help them,” she added.
Compassion Closet is a non-profit that provides “quick-turn assistance to foster, kinship, adoptive and other families in East Tennessee,” the organization’s website stated. It provides “quality clothing and tangible goods to foster children and their families.”
“I learned that it’s really good to give back and not just always keeping things for yourself but more people need,” Dery said. “If you have a lot of things, it’s really good to give back to some people who need it more than you do.
“It’s really good,” said Josiah Hair, another fifth-grader. “I feel really good about this. I’m really happy that we are giving kids that are getting adopted into new families better stuff and really just something to wear every day.”
“Amazing,” fourth-grader Lyla Strickenberger said about their endeavors. “I love helping those kind of people.”
“Our student council, grades third through fifth, has joined together with Compassion Closet to take up pairs of socks for kids to support (CC’s) program, and their program is foster children,” NES fifth-grade teacher Natalie Pratt said. “So, it’s taking up socks for foster kids.
“We’ve taken up socks for over a week, (starting right after spring break), and we have collected a total of 5,683 pairs of socks,” she added.
Pratt explained the student council does a few drives a year “just to be part of our community. We have several parents who are involved with Compassion Closet.
“I reached out to our community and asked their needs, and they approached they would love your support and, so, we just kind of got together and each class took up socks,” added Pratt, the council’s faculty sponsor. “Then, for each grade level classroom that had the most socks, we’re doing a Popsicle party.
“It’s kind of a little healthy competition.”
More than 1,000 students collected socks, according to Pratt.
“All grade levels collected,” she said, adding there are about 25 members in the student council.
“They loved it,” Pratt said about the students. “I think that (collecting socks) helped because the younger kids could carry in socks, and they were light.
“We did a canned collection the fall, and it seemed like the older grades did better with that because of carrying multiple cans in,” she added. “So, more grade levels got involved with this because it was an easier thing for kids to participate in.
“I think it’s amazing. What it’s done is it’s helped show (students) how to care for the community in other ways than just giving money.
As for details about the canned food drive, “In the fall, we do a canned food drive for The Love Kitchen (with Farragut schools), so that’s a need that’s met, and then this (drive) is for foster children, so they’re two different, opposite ends of the need,” Pratt said. “It just makes my heart happy.”
Also, “they get to see what they can accomplish simply just by reaching out,” she added.
