The Shine Bright Closet is a closet in the Jobs After Graduation room that is free to all students that has a lot of resources they can use for hygiene.
“Any student in the entire high school can come in here and get something,” JAG teacher Gretchen Brosman said.
Brosman has been running the Shine Bright Closet in the JAG room for four years now. The people who inspired her to shine bright in the closet were her JAG students. The main people who run the closet are Broesman and the Advanced JAG students.
“JAG students understand the importance of it so they’re in charge of keeping it stocked and let me know what is running out,” Brosman said.
The United Way Of The Midlands is a non-profit resource organization that gives all the products for the hygiene closet. This organization saw a massive need for the JAG program to have hygiene products. They decided that it’s something all the kids need access to.
“This is the only thing they provide to several countries across the state,” Brosman said.
The most popular things in the closet are: chapsticks, Pantene hair wash, Tide pods, and deodorants. Brosman’s goal for the closet in the future is to have better advertisements for the closet so more students in need know about the closet and can use it.
“I think if we had more kids who knew about it more kids would use it,” Brosman said.
Some changes she hopes to make to the closet is to have all the stuff together in one place, so kids can go whenever and not just when a teacher is there. She isn’t always there by the end of the day, and students may need to take things home. The problem is that if she’s not there, they do not have access to it.
“You know, they may need something to take home and I may not be here, so I want something more accessible,” Brosman said.
Another change she hopes to make is to add undergarments. They especially want to do this for girls if they need clean undergarments so they can come in and change and not be embarrassed. They are not quite sure how to add undergarments yet because they want new undergarments and not used ones. They would also like to add socks to the closet.
“We will have the closet every year that I am here. I think people expect the parents or caregivers to be able to take care of the family fully, and we’ve seen that it’s not always possible,” Brosman said.
”Having a closet like this in the school makes students feel more independent.
Jeff Bittfield said “I think it’s a great thing the kids need, I think just the fact that kids know there is adults and programs in place to help them be successful is kind of cool”
Gretchen and Bitfield both hope that the closet gets better advertised so more kids know about it and use the closet. The things in the closet make the student more successful. The closet gives kids one less thing to worry about. Bittfield said ” we are very lucky to have nice people who help donate and set all that stuff up.”
The closet helps meet kids’ basic needs and makes them more comfortable. Bitfield said “When we meet those basic needs it helps kids either come to school or helps them feel more comfortable at school.”
