Resource Gathering For

Mendez
Ella Garcia, Clem Webre, Tanner DeLaCruz, Camille Embree
Our Issue:
- On October 4th, an AISD teacher created a post on FaceBook, stating that
students were coming to school with no shoes or socks, and that this
occurrence was quite common.
Issues Related to Having Zero to Little Supplies
- Social and Emotional Challenges
- Disadvantage for learning
- Inability to participate
- Loss of school days
- Continuing the cycle of poverty
Research
- On October 22nd, our group joined in on a call with Lily Primeaux, a teaching
assistant at Mendez discussing the situation while also gathering information
about the school and community climate. Through this call, we found that
Mendez actually has a clothing closet as well as a parent support specialist
who runs it.
- We spoke with the former principal Chris Jones, about his experiences there.
While Mendez is not only underfunded, necessary teaching resources aren't
available, especially to those whose first language is not english. Those
students account for ⅓ of the student body
- 91% of the students come from economically disadvantaged families.
- Globally over 300 million people can’t afford shoes.
Research
- We plan to visit Mendez Middle School this upcoming week to record
observations and speak with some of the kids and teachers there to gain a
broader perspective.
- In addition, we received the contact information for the woman who runs the
clothes closet at Mendez, and plan to find the resources they need the most
and focus on those throughout our project.
-
Communication Plan
- Our target audience will be parents and community members surrounding the
Austin area as they will be crucial in gathering supplies. We are focusing on
them as they will likely have clothes that would fit middle schoolers from their
children’s past.
- For a similar reason, we will focus on high schoolers, as they could have old
clothes to donate, or possibly younger siblings clothes.
- We plan to use social media as a platform to spread the word of our drive i.e
(parent emails, posters around Austin, AHS weekly newsletter, Instagram)
- Additionally we are reaching out to partner with organizations that help aid in
clothing drives or have resources that can be donated.
Our Plan
1. With the information we found, we discovered that the best solution would be
to come up with donations, both money and clothing, through our high school
as well as each of our communities.
a. We will create a “donation box” similar to the one shown below, and place it in our school,
making announcements during the morning announcements in order to draw attention to it.
We will also try to offer AGS freshman and sophomores service points for donations.
b. We plan to use the Nextdoor app in order to spread the drive to our local communities and
neighborhoods.
c. To bring this plan to a global level, we will be creating a GoFundMe and using the internet
(Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram) in order to raise money, which we will use to make a run to a
local clothing store such as GoodWill.
Our Plan
- Another idea we have is to hold a fundraising race, as one of the most
needed resources here is shoes.
- We would discuss with the AGS teachers, hopefully being able to give
students service points for participation in the race.
- This would not only raise awareness, but also raise money and hopefully
some resources for the students of Mendez.
Our Plan
- Next, we plan to take the clothes we have collected and create a type of
closet within Mendez.
- While we tried to find a more permanent solution, our research showed that
this would be difficult.