Ann E's Closet

When one of our very own staff members, Heather Smith, started at BGHS she was asked to relocate the giving closet. She then had the opportunity to take it over and make it better for the students!

Heather Smith: "One of my first jobs on campus was to move what was called the giving closet from a storage area to the locker room. The items to me did not look like things teenagers would wear. Also it was extremely smelly. Within a month of working on campus I was asked to take a student to find something in the giving closet. The stuff was in piles on the floor. That day I ran up to Ross and bought the student what she needed and I decided I needed to do something. The first improvement was moving everything to a bigger location. That is when it was relocated to the home it has today. The next year and a half I spent every opportunity I had to make the area nice by working some weekends, buying things with my own money to make improvements, organizing student groups to help. As  the giving closet grew in popularity, so too did the challenges we faced. Space became scarce, and time seemed to slip away as the demand for its services grew. We didn’t have enough usable space to put everything. No matter what we did It seemed unorganized. On one of those frustrating days, trying to organize Officer Rhodes came along. Initially, she had small ideas of helping, those small ideas became huge!

She rallied her resources and helped create the marvelous space we have today."

DVUSD Governing Board Member, Ann Ordway, long ago started a thing called Calling All Fairy Godmothers, which is an event we do here at BGHS that gives the students an opportunity to come up and choose a dress or a suit for an upcoming dance, or even a professional event. If you don't have the time or money to buy those expensive formal clothes, then you can come check out The Giving Closet.