Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the School Support Services topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Coronado Community Closet remodeled into storelike space with Police Foundation support
Summary
Coronado High School’s Community Closet, open to all Scottsdale Unified School District students and families, was reorganized from unsorted donation bags into a storelike space with dressing rooms and checkout after a multi-year effort supported by the Police Foundation and school staff.
Scottsdale Unified School District’s Coronado Community Closet has been remodeled into a storelike space with dressing rooms, new floors and a checkout area after a multi-year effort by school staff, students and support from the Police Foundation. The closet, housed at Coronado High School, offers free donated clothing and household items to students and families across SUSD.
The closet began as unsorted bags and boxes of donations. Guidance counselor Arielle Shinder described the early setup: "that felt like asking them to pick through bags of garbage," she said, referring to the original arrangement of donations on cafeteria-style tables. Shinder and school staff worked with school resource officers and volunteers to sort donations and develop a more dignified shopping experience.
The Police Foundation provided funding and in-kind support to create the current layout, Officer Michelle Mitchell, the school resource officer at Saguaro High School, said. "They were able to actually donate what we envisioned the place to look like — an actual store for students to come in," Mitchell said. Work on the main remodel took place over spring break, and the space now includes dressing rooms and new flooring; organizers said some shelving and racks remain to be installed.
Students participated in the redesign, helping choose names, logos and colors; the Police Foundation ran a logo contest that included community voting. All items in the closet are donated and free. Shinder said the program accommodates a range of needs: "It's not there just for Coronado students or the Coronado complex of schools. It's there for all the schools. It's just housed at Coronado." Organizers ask schools to notify their social worker or community specialist to arrange shopping visits for students from other campuses.
The Coronado Community Closet also houses the district prom closet and works with the Jobs for Arizona Graduates (JAG) program to repurpose overflow items. Staff accept donations of clothing, shoes in good condition and items suitable for job interviews; stained items have sometimes been donated to theater tech programs for use in sets and painting.
Donations can be left in a white bin behind the public bus stop in the Coronado parking lot or dropped at the school's front office for pickup. The closet accepts sizes from infants through adults and is intended to serve students, their families and caregivers. School resource officers and community specialists help manage the space and keep it organized.
The podcast also highlighted related school–police partnership efforts, such as Crisis Canines deployed in several schools to support student well-being. The host closed by directing listeners to susd.org/spotlight for more information and ideas for future episodes.
Organizers said the remodel has reduced stigma and made the closet a more welcoming place for students; they emphasized that the upgrade is largely complete but still awaits additional shelving and racks before organizers consider the project finished.
