GHS Students Give Back to the Community in a Fashionable Way

The advanced fashion marketing class along with DECA (the marketing student organization) organized and executed a Holiday Goodwill Clothing Drive at Grayson High School and collected well over 2,000 pieces.

Thrifting has become a trend among fashion students in part due to our current economic situation, but students have also embraced the concept of recycling and reusing. The drive began as part of the 2011 DECA and Fashion Marketing’s fall fashion show. Students borrowed clothing from Goodwill and recreated fall trends with great success. This year, they wanted to continue the message with the goal of opening the minds of their peers to recycled clothing and reusing/repurposing thrift store fines.

A Lesson In The Marketing of Fashion

Throughout the project, a public service announcement, created by the video broadcast class a Grayson Tech along with the fashion marketing students, ran on Ram TV. The students put flyers in teachers’ boxes and flyers around the school promoting the drive. Fashion marketing students then went around to EVERY advisement class during the week before the kick off of the Holiday Goodwill Clothing Drive to talk to students about the drive, recycling, a pizza party for the winners and the mission of Goodwill of North Georgia.

Last year’s fall fashion show was the first event that the Fashion Marketing students partnerned with Goodwill and there was a small clothing drive that accompanied the show. This year’s fall show was a big success and there will be a spring fashion show at the end of February with clothing that reflects spring trends as styled by students using clothing from Goodwill.

Beyond designing the clothing, the fashion show is also great learning opportunity for fashion marketing students as they get hands-on experience planning, promoting, and executing the show.  Students research the trends and have specific items in mind when they search through the selected stores for supplies. Each piece that is selected is recorded and clothing is returned to Goodwill after the show. Students present 15-20 looks for both guys and girls for the show. 

LeeAnn Robbins’ advisement class was the winner of the pizza party and at first, she says, the pizza was the focus of her students. “Then we realized what the really important thing was, helping others, and the huge bags of clothes really started coming in. Most of my sophomores ride buses, so they'd pack up all their extra clothes, and I'd drive to their house after school to pick them up. Even the ones who didn't have extras to donate helped by delivering bags every day and counting garments. We absolutely loved participating in the drive and are grateful for the opportunity to do something worthwhile. I'm so proud of my awesome students.”

Kiera Soloman, the student organizer for the project says that the fashion shows and the clothing drive are wonderful learning experiences. “Our goal has been to show students the importance of recycling clothing and how you can reuse and repurpose clothing. Getting the students at Grayson excited about donating clothing, teaching them about what Goodwill does with the donations, and seeing how successful the drive was has been extremely rewarding.  I am looking forward to our spring fashion show and continuing our partnership with Goodwill of North Georgia.”  

Elaine Armstrong, Director of Public Relations for Goodwill says that the clothing drive demonstrates true leadership and education. “Each time a person donates they are actively participating in our mission and helping us put North Georgians to work.” The 2000 items donated by GHS students help provide more job training and employment services for people looking for work. “We thank the entire student body and staff at Grayson for their generosity.”

Armstrong says that she is inspired by the accomplishments of the GHS Fashion Marketing Department. “It's remarkable to see youth both educate and motivate their peers to take actions that will help others in the community. We are honored that they have chosen to support our organization and its mission.”