Eastern Washington University opens clothing closet

Closet has served nearly

75 people

By Clare McGraw

Cheney Free Press

CHENEY – Eastern Washington University has opened a clothing closet to help prepare future teachers for embarking on their professional careers.

“In the summer of 2022, we were discussing what some of the needs of our teaching candidates were and how we could address them,” Eastern Field Experience Director Stephanie Lauritzen said. “One of them was having resources to ‘look like a teacher’.”

“We wanted to help our teaching candidates make the transition from student to professional,” she explained. “Whether they were teaching pre-school, elementary art, middle school P.E. or high school math.”

The cornerstone of the initiative was a donation-drive. Lauritzen said.

“We started taking donations of clothing, accessories, and materials to create the closet,” she said.

The community rallied behind the cause, contributing to the inventory.

To enhance the resources available, Lauritzen and her team pursued additional support.

“In addition, we wrote a grant which helped us get some of the materials that hadn’t been donated — some of the clothing racks, and some sizes and styles that we didn’t have,” she said.

They were awarded the Think Big grant in December of 2022, and according to Lauritzen, they had “just finished using all of it.”

Since its inception, the Professional Clothing Closet has been serving the School of Education students, with Lauritzen mentioning, “We were able to open it to School of Education students beginning a year ago, for winter quarter 2023.”

Subsequent openings included a week in June for the College of Professional Programs and special permission in September for Eastern employees affected by local wildfires.

“Over the last year, we have served nearly 75 people through the use of the closet,” Lauritzen said.