CORE Shares the Love this Holiday Season through Spreading Threads

By Angela D. Wagner | November 8, 2019

By Angela D.
Wagner

The sound of
rustling papers, happy chatter, and staplers clicking filled the Wetmore office
of CORE
(Commercial Office Resource Environments) the evening of Tuesday,
Oct. 29, 2019. Rather than filling orders for office desks, chairs, or
educational or medical furniture, the women of CORE and several other
volunteers turned into Santa’s elves. Roughly 10 people spent time building
beautiful donation boxes to capture the clothing needed to fill the shelves and
hangers at the Spreading
Threads Clothing Bank.

Just one of the many donation boxes decorated by CORE staff and volunteers for the CORE holiday clothing drive for Spreading Threads.

“We had so
much fun,” said Mercedes Flores, principal of CORE. “Every year we pick a
charity to work with during the holidays. Last year we chose Casa de los Niños. This year
we chose Spreading Threads because they offer an invaluable service to Arizona
foster families.”

CORE Account Manager Cristina Arriaga encourages Mercedes Flores' puppy to lift a paw for charity.

Spreading Threads
Clothing Bank specifically focuses on assisting children in foster care and
foster families in Tucson and Southern Arizona. As of July 2019, there were
more than 2,000 children in foster care in Pima County alone, according to a
report by KVOA
News 4 Tucson. The same piece reported that there were only 680
licensed foster families in Pima County, leaving many children in group homes.

Whether in foster
care or in a group home, one of the most difficult things about being a foster
child is accessing the resources needed such as clothing. That’s where
Spreading Threads can help, according to Michele Wright who founded the Spreading Threads
Clothing Bank with her wife, Michele Bennett, just last year.

Michele Wright and Cristina Arriaga, account manager for CORE, shared a moment for a photo at the decorating party at CORE headquarters.

“I have been a foster parent for almost 18 years,” said Michele Wright, who adopted three foster children with her wife. The couple is currently working on its fourth adoption. “In 2009, the state of Arizona cut the annual clothing allotment per child from $300 to $150, which it remains today. It’s ridiculous. Somebody needed to do something on the ground level that knew what the kids needed.”

That’s how
Spreading Threads, now a 501(c)3 and a Qualifying Foster Care Charitable
Organization through the Arizona Department of Revenue, came to fruition. The
Spreading Threads Clothing Bank accepts donations of new and gently used
clothing for foster children of all ages, birth to age 18, as well as books,
toys, backpacks, toiletries, other items foster children can use. Foster
children, their families, and group homes then come in and “shop” the donations
for free, taking what they need to supplement what the state provides.

A reindeer donation box constructed at the box-building party at CORE.

Now Spreading Threads is settling into its new location near I-10 and Prince in the 85705 area code. Wright said this is the perfect location for the Spreading Threads Clothing Bank as the area code has one of the highest removal rates for children in Pima County.

“We wanted
to do something that made it easy, free, and accessible for the people who
really needed it,” said Wright. “We wanted to put the services where the people
lived that really needed them.”

CORE Principal Mercedes Flores hot glues a snowflake to decorate a box while Elaina Vasquez, director of customer experience at CORE, sifts through decorations to use.

Ironically
enough, Wright once worked for a competitor of CORE in the same industry but
now Wright and Flores get to work together for the betterment of foster
children in the community.

“To have
CORE’s help is amazing and it’s desperately needed because we are starting from
scratch right now,” said Wright of the clothing drive CORE has put together.
“It’s so cool to have community partners that have no strings attached. They
just want to help.”

A volunteer wraps a donation box during the CORE box-building party on Oct. 29, 2019.

Flores, who is married with five children, three of whom are adopted, said anyone who has ever had to clothe a child knows $150 isn’t going to go very far.

“I think all children deserve to have their basic needs met including having clothing that gives them a sense of pride and dignity, which they are deserving of,” Flores said. “It’s the privilege of CORE to be able to work with Spreading Threads to assist Tucson’s foster children.”

CORE's Director of Customer Experience Elaina Vasquez works on constructing a chimney themed donation box.

“It was
awesome to be a part of this,” said Cristina Arriaga, account manager for CORE.
“Our hopes are so high that people will contribute to the needs of our foster
children. I think foster children get left behind but I think through Spreading
Threads, they can get the clothes they need. Kids need clothes that don’t look
like they have been worn for years. These kids are so appreciative of what they
are given because they have been in the foster system.”

Elaina
Vasquez, director of customer experience at CORE, said she had a lot of fun
participating in decorating the donation boxes for Spreading Threads.

One of the completed donation boxes CORE will distribute throughout Tucson to collect clothing items for foster children this holiday season.

“It is a
really good way for us to give back as a small business to our community in
some small way,” Vasquez said. “It’s really exciting to be able to see them get
some new clothes because foster children don’t always get new things.”

The donation boxes decorated by the staff and volunteers at CORE have been distributed to various locations throughout Tucson. The boxes of donations will be picked up on Dec. 4, 2019, by CORE employees before being handed over to Spreading Threads. CORE is asking for the community to help them assist foster children and foster families with the basics during this season of giving.

Another of the completed clothing donation boxes.

Donations of
the following are desperately needed, according to Wright, especially for
school-aged children:

New
and Gently Used Clothing
New
Socks and Underwear
New
or Gently Used Shoes
Toys
Books
Backpacks
Toiletries
School
Supplies

Donation
boxes can be found at the following locations through Dec. 4, 2019:

CORE

698 E. Wetmore Road, Ste. 410

Tucson, AZ 85705

Accelerated Learning Laboratory

5245 N. Camino De Oeste

Tucson, AZ 85745

Salpointe Catholic High
School

1545 E. Copper St.

Tucson, AZ 85719

The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints

2002 N. Greasewood Road

Tucson, AZ 85745

Ombudsman Charter School
Valencia

1660 W. Valencia Road

Tucson, AZ 85746

Nails-Go-Round &
Eternal Beauty Lounge

651 W. Roger Road

Tucson, AZ 85705

Please consider making a donation of new or used clothing for Tucson's foster children.

If you would like to have a clothing donation box dropped off at
your place of business, contact CORE at (520) 999-3470. CORE will gladly pick
up the donation boxes on Dec. 4, 2019. You may also make a dollar-for-dollar,
tax-deductible monetary donation to Spreading Threads Clothing Bank by calling
Michele Wright at (520) 971-3237.

Spreading Threads Clothing Bank is a 501(c)3 organization offering free clothing to foster children in Tucson and Southern Arizona.

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