To help this closet succeed, take a look in your own

It’s not easy being a teen – how’s that for the “no duh” statement of the day? Your body grows in odd ways, and your role at home and in school changes from day to day. Heck, who you think you are changes from day to day.

It’s a vulnerable time in anybody’s life, and some take a harder beating than others.

For myriad reasons, 50 to 75 children and teens move in with foster families in Spokane County every month.

They come with few or no personal belongings, no books and no clothes. This is where the Teen Closet comes in.

“We are asking for new or gently used clothing to be donated to us, and we’ll make it available to teens that come into foster care with nothing,” says Linda Rogers, regional foster parent recruiter for Families for Kids, which is part of Lutheran Social Services.

Rogers and Robin Nance, news anchor at KXLY-TV, put their heads together about a year ago and started planning for the Teen Closet – a new nonprofit clothing bank for teens in foster care.

“The national news had a story about a teen in Florida who had opened a teen closet and been very successful,” says Rogers. “Robin Nance called and asked if I’d seen the story. I had – we met for coffee and decided we needed to do this in Spokane.”

The Teen Closet will open its doors on North Napa as soon as possible, after the Extreme Team from KXLY-TV has finished making over the space.

So how is the Teen Closet different from any other secondhand clothing store or emergency clothing bank?

Well, the clothes are chosen by teens – no dowdy and dull rags here.

“We have a teen board with a teen from most every high school in Spokane,” explains Rogers. “They collect things at high schools and set the standards for what we want in the Closet.”

Seeking teen approval may just be the key to success here. Clothes are important to teenagers regardless of whether their style is Dumpster-diving dude or teen queen or anything between.

“Foster children often have to start at a new school,” says Rogers. “Imagine that you have no personal items, no clothes and you are at a new school where you have to fit in; it’s like, wow. It’s a lot at one time.” Personal hygiene items are needed as well.

Rogers knows what she is talking about: Over the past 13 years, Rogers and her family have cared for more than 100 foster children.

“As soon as we got the license, they asked if we’d take a 9-month-old and a 3-year-old, and we thought, OK,” Rogers says. “We had them for a year. All of a sudden we had six children at home.”

Her three biological children are now grown, and she’s adopted two foster children.

Foster children do get a clothing voucher worth $100, Rogers explains, “but when one pair of jeans can be as much as $50 it doesn’t always stretch that far.”

Some donations are in place, but more support is needed.

“We can use cash donations as well,” says Rogers. “There are places on the Internet where you can buy, say, 10 pairs of jeans in size 8 and get a really good deal.”

So far, the Teen Closet is meant to be just for teens in foster care who, of course, don’t have to pay for the clothes. People off the street will have to find another place to fulfill their secondhand-clothes cravings.

This is perhaps the best excuse I can think of to make your teen clean out his or her closet, so get on it.

What is the most desired clothing item?

“Our teen advisory board says jeans, they want jeans,” says Rogers.

Some things never change.