Teen organizes clothing drive for needy kids

One local teenager is helping children in need, one outfit at a time. Garland Davenport, a 12th grader at Whitewater High School, is combining her love of fashion with a desire to make a difference in her community by reaching out to children in need. Davenport has inaugurated “Project One Cute Outfit,” a grassroots effort to collect gently used clothing for children and teenagers who have been removed from their homes dues to abuse or neglect.

Davenport points out there are over 8,000 children living in foster care in the state of Georgia, and many of them come into the system with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Her goal is to collect 2,000 articles of clothing by Christmas, and she plans to donate them to Gracie’s Closet, a clothing resource center for children living in foster care on the south side of metro Atlanta.

The Fayetteville teenager has targeted neighbors in her own subdivision as well as classmates at her school in her efforts to collect the clothing, and she is well on her way to meeting her goal.

“There are so many kids out there who have so little. If you donate to my project, I’ll make sure your clothing will go to a child who really needs it,” Davenport said.
Davenport hopes to arrive half way to her goal by the end of October, and she has organized a community-wide clothing drop-off day to bring her closer to that goal.

Donations of gently used clothing from infant through teen sizes can be dropped off on Saturday, October 13 from 10 a.m.- 3 p.m. at the Gazebo in the Fayette County Administrative Complex in downtown Fayetteville. All donors will receive a tax donation receipt.