In her Op-Ed published on July 3, 2025. in The Journal News/LoHud, our Executive Director sheds light on a hidden crisis: clothing insecurity doesn’t pause for summer. While school-based programs may close, the need for shorts, T-shirts, swimsuits, and sneakers doesn’t. Many children face the heat without weather-appropriate clothing—missing out on camp, outdoor play, and escaping the heat in a swimming pool.
She shares insights gained from the The Sharing Shelf’s community partners and their stories of the challenges facing the families we serve.
To meet the need, programs like The Sharing Shelf need year-round support to ensure all children can participate fully, with dignity, both during the school year and during the summer.
You can read the OpEd below:
The school doors have closed for summer. One imagines children playing, running and swimming, enjoying long days outside with their friends, in playgrounds, on ballfields, in pools or at camp. Yet, clothing insecurity does not go on vacation and disappear on warm days. For children and teens faced with clothing insecurity, summer can be just as stressful as school, with the same limitations and constrictions. It is an issue I see first-hand at The Sharing Shelf, the nonprofit Clothing Bank for children and teens that I lead, serving Westchester County.
Clothing insecurity — the lack of sufficient, clean, seasonal and size-appropriate apparel—has profound implications in school. Children who are clothing insecure are more likely to endure bullying, be absent from school, lack confidence and suffer from low esteem.
One might think that clothing insecurity would dissipate in the summer. A child wears fewer clothes: there’s no need for a coat, sweatshirts or long pants; “just” shorts, t-shirts and a pair of sneakers. Children are not walking down the halls of school day after day, so repeating an outfit or wearing the same shorts should not matter, right? Unfortunately, access to appropriate, sufficient and clean clothing and daily essentials like socks, underwear and sneakers — ones that fit and don’t have holes — are as critical in summer as during the school year.
Moreover, children need enough clothing to last, at a minimum, a full week. As shocking as it sounds, many children we serve do not reach this basic threshold.
Every summer, we receive requests at our Clothing Bank for children and teens who lack clothes needed to participate in ordinary summer activities. Many children are offered the opportunity to take swim lessons or attend day camps with a swimming pool, but they do not have a bathing suit or flip flops, and their parents cannot afford to buy them.
Overnight camps are a staple of summer, something offered to low-income children as a chance to leave their urban environment and enjoy the outdoors. Yet for many families, meeting the camp packing list — seven pairs of socks and underwear, a rain jacket, a sturdy pair of shoes — is simply out of reach. At Teen Boutique, our free store for teens that is part of our Clothing Bank, we have even had teens unable to try on clothes because they did not have underwear. One summer, a colleague dropped off summer clothing for a teenage girl whose only outfit was a wool skirt and sweater. She had been staying indoors and had not ventured out, because she did not have appropriate summer clothing.
A survey conducted in the fall by The Sharing Shelf revealed the views of more than 120 individuals from the schools, social service agencies, and other nonprofit organizations that we serve. It found that the most needed items of clothing are as follows: sneakers, 85% cited; coats, 81%; shirts, 80%; jeans/pants, 61%; underwear or diapers, 57%; sweatshirts or sweaters, 45%; sweatpants or leggings, 43%; shoes, 34%; socks, 20%.
Notably, sneakers topped the list; underwear or diapers were cited more than half the time. And this is in Westchester, one of the nation’s wealthiest counties.
Despite the county’s apparent wealth, 36% of Westchester households are income-constrained according to the United Way. More than 67,000 children and teens live in poverty or a low-income home in Westchester. The county’s poverty rate for children under five was 11.1% in 2023 (the latest data available), according to Westchester Children’s Association.
So how can you make a difference? A first step is donating seasonally appropriate, new or gently used clothing to a nonprofit Clothing Bank like The Sharing Shelf, where the clothes will go directly to children in need. Donations of clothing to nonprofits that resell the clothes to benefit their mission may support a wonderfully admirable cause, but they will not ensure that the clothing reaches the children who need it most.
If you have no clothing to donate, a financial contribution to a nonprofit Clothing Bank such as The Sharing Shelf enables the securing of sizes and items needed, especially things like underwear and socks that must be new, and sneakers that are rarely reusable. We have opportunities to purchase new sneakers and clothing at deeply discounted rates, but no retailer or wholesaler will provide these essentials for free in the volume we need.
Summer can be a magical time for children and many of us have wonderful memories of summer days as children playing with family and friends. If we want every child to experience the joy and possibility of summer, we need to level the playing field and ensure they have what they need to fully participate and enjoy the magical freedom of splashing in a pool and running outside on long warm days.
Deborah Blatt is founder and executive director of The Sharing Shelf, the nonprofit Clothing Bank serving Westchester County, New York.