Paying it Forward – High School Intern Partners on Stratford House Clothing Drive – by Ben Wojnar

On the morning of Tuesday, June 25^th, I drove down to the South Bronx from Westchester in my Honda Civic. In the car’s back seat, front seat, and trunk were clothes that I had gathered to drop off at the Stratford House with Kendra Oke, who is organizing a clothing drive in July for the tenants of the low-income housing development.

I had heard about the clothing drive while interning at the City Bar Justice Center. Lisa Pearlstein, the director for the CBJC’s Legal Clinic for the Homeless, mentioned that Stratford House was looking for clothes in good condition, including business attire, and I thought that my teachers and the Irvington High School community would have some clothes to donate to meet those needs.

A couple of weeks ago, I began corresponding with the vice principle of IHS, made up fliers and distributed them to the faculty mailboxes, and sent out a couple of mass e-mails to the school faculty. Within two weeks, the vice principle’s office was full of bags of clothes from the faculty and the faculty’s children who had outgrown many garments. I also corresponded with Ms. Ricciardi of the Irvington Middle School, who allowed me to sort through many clothes that the IMS Midnight Run club had collected.

From these two sources, I collected enough clothes to fill my car and drove down to the Stratford House to meet Ms. Oke and drop them off. Ms. Oke welcomed me and gave me a tour of the Stratford House and of her apartment. She served me a glass of ginger ale and told me about the hardships she and other tenants of the house had faced and about the noble work she was doing for the house and with her church.

I was humbled and inspired by Ms. Oke’s stories and her attitude. She told me more than once that she believed in “paying it forward.” After I left the house, contributing to her clothing drive seemed like a no-brainer. More often than not, resources like clothing are abundant in the town that I am from, and leveraging some of these resources to donate to those less fortunate seems only right. I hope the clothes that I collected will be of good use to the tenants of the Stratford House.

Ben Wojnar is a student at Irvington High School.