Brand new clothes
Salvation Army helps low-income kids get ready for school
EL CENTRO — Some 30 children from low-income families were each paired with a shopping buddy and a $60 gift card and turned loose in Walmart to shop for back-to-school clothes Tuesday and Wednesday as part of the local Salvation Army corps’ annual Back to School program.
Although the corps has been conducting the event for the past several years, this was the first year it was held at Walmart and the first that it was split between two days, said Lt. John Acosta, who with his wife and fellow lieutenant, Jennifer Acosta, heads the El Centro Corps.
Splitting up the kids was a function of making the event more manageable for the corps members and volunteers, he said, while the change of venue was, quite frankly, aimed at stretching a dollar. “We wanted the kids to get more bang for the buck,” he said.
In previous years, as many as 50 children would be included in the event, and each would receive a $100 gift card, Acosta said.
However, both donations and volunteers were down this year, requiring the corps to scale back.
Nevertheless, the kids were not disappointed. In addition to the $60, each received a backpack filled with school supplies, a gift bag from Walmart and a $15 voucher for use at the Salvation Army Thrift Store on Fourth Street.
Salvation Army board member Kurt Leptich was on hand as a shopping buddy on Wednesday. He said the 6-year-old girl he was paired with, who said her name was Belinda Bell, told him she had been to Walmart a few days earlier with her mother. Apparently, the little girl had her eye on a new dress that her mother told her they could not afford.
On Wednesday, that was not the case.