Local woman planning on starting new community service project
COSHOCTON – Melissa Roahrig has always enjoyed helping the community, but in 2016 she hopes to do even more.
Her goal is to seek nominations from the community of children or families and treat them to a new outfit including shoes from items she collected either from donations, thrift stores, garage sales or found bargains on at stores.
“This could really boost someone’s self confidence and that would be the main goal,” Roahrig said. “I read an article in a magazine about a teacher in an inner city school who noticed in her classroom that students who were dressed clean and nice had a difference in their attitude toward learning. They felt more confidence in raising their hands to answers questions versus a student who say had duct tape on their shoes so she started a clothing room in an unused room in her school. Eventually she opened it up to other schools and people started donating items to it.”
Roahrig already has a couple of totes of clothing and is working on getting a 501c3 for her yet to be named program. She does however, know that she would like to make the program mobile and take it to where people are and have it up and running by March.
“I wanted to wait until March because there are already so many programs during the holidays, but what happens after the holidays?” Roahrig said. “If it’s still cold then we can look at pants or help people get a spring outfit. We can change the outfits and the shoes with the season. This is definitely something I want to do year round.”
Anyone interested in nominating a family or a child to be treated to a new outfit can contact Roahrig at 740-575-2361.
“They (the nominator) don’t have to tell me who they are, but if they want to that is great,” she said. “I just need a way to get a hold of the family or a parent if it’s a child and if they are close to the family or child, knowing their sizes would be a good starting point. Then I can contact them and we can figure out when to get together to go on a shopping spree for an outfit. I want them to feel like they won something.”
Roahrig is excited to get going and help people in the community.
“I couldn’t do anything without the support of my family,” she said. “It’s really not just me doing this. It takes all the people behind the scenes.”
josie@coshoctoncountybeacon.com
Category: People & Places
