With cold weather coming up, a new school club, Positive Charge! IBW, has just held its first project—a winter clothing drive.

Club leaders, Lucia Donovan and Katie Douglas first started volunteering at Positive Charge! PDX, a non-profit volunteer organization. This year the two worked together to make a Positive Charge! club at Ida B. Wells.

The club is considered an extension of Positive Charge! PDX. “I wanted to do something to help the community,” said Douglas. “They suggested that a good way to help was to maybe start a club here.”

The goal of the club is to organize community-focused work in order to help people and teach students at our school how to make change. “We want to give people opportunities to give back to their communities and help out,” said Donovan. 

Douglas wants the club to reach as many students as possible because it is a great way to help our community. “A lot of times I think students don’t realize how easy it is to help,” said Douglas. “It doesn’t really take a lot to do it, so it’s to tell people that they can do this too.”

Currently, the club has come up with ideas for projects that benefit homeless people, from a food drive to making lunches to hand out. They also plan to help with the larger organization’s projects and have some of their volunteers talk to their students.

The drive was from Nov. 18 until Dec. 9. Due to the cold weather, the club wanted to help those in need. “It just breaks my heart,” Douglas said. “Hearing stories about people who are homeless or in bad situations struggling to keep warm.” 

“Around this time of year, a lot of people are clearing out their stuff, figuring out what fits, if something doesn’t, its easy to donate it,” said Douglas. The donation bins are placed on either side of the school. A bin dedicated to clean winter outerwear and another bin for new hygiene products.

During the 3 weeks of the drive, several people went through their old winter clothes and decided to donate. Donovan and Douglas are impressed by the success of their first project and hope to see more people join Positive Charge! IBW, so they can plan out bigger projects for the school community.