Port Towns Elementary School is one of the largest public elementary schools in Maryland and serves around 1,000 students in Prince George’s County. The school is also a community school, which means that the school community works together to ensure that the students receive services that support them academically, socially, and emotionally during and outside of the school day. This includes making sure that students have access to winter coats and school uniforms.
According to Community School Coordinator Cindy Ascencio, the school received several coat donations last fall but had nowhere to store them. So this past December, Community Forklift provided Port Towns Elementary School with three free salvaged garment racks to help organize coat donations.
“Now that we have the racks, we have been able to organize the coats by size. Searching for a coat is no longer stressful. We are grateful for the partnership with Community Forklift. They are doing amazing work!”
Cindy Ascencio, Community School Coordinator at Port Towns Elementary School
Community School Coordinators like Cindy are tasked with identifying the school community’s needs, coordinating student and family support services such as food distribution, and establishing and maintaining partnerships with nonprofits and businesses. Cindy shared with us that the many families she assists are still trying to recover from the pandemic.
“Our goal as a school is to ensure that every student is warm this fall/winter despite their economic status,” said Cindy.
Port Towns Elementary School is currently accepting clothing donations for its coat and school uniform drives. The school is running low on uniforms and is in need of donations of navy blue and dark gold tops, khaki bottoms, coats, and shoes. (See Uniform Policy examples.) If you’d like to make a donation to support the school, please email Cindy Ascencio at cindy.ascencio@pgcps.org.
Students wear navy blue/mustard tops and khaki bottoms and are in need of the following sizes:
Tops for females and males: 10/12, 14/16, 18, 20
Bottoms for females and males: 10/12, 14/16, 18, 20
Coats for females and males: 7/8, 10/12, 14/16/, 18, 20
Shoes: Big kids 2, 3, 4; adult sizes 5, 6, 7
Community Forklift distributes free materials to local nonprofits, schools, and community groups through our Community Building Blocks Program. In addition to providing the clothing racks at Port Towns Elementary School, we also supplied them with free digital thermometers and hand sanitizer.
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Every time you donate or shop at Community Forklift, you’re helping us lift up local communities through reuse. We turn the construction waste stream into a resource stream for communities in the DC region – by keeping perfectly good items out of the landfill, preserving historical materials, providing low-cost building supplies, and creating local green jobs.
