Windermere Prep club helps the homeless

WINDERMERE It all started with a “60 Minutes” clip.

In 2012, a parent who viewed the story of a Central Florida family that was homeless brought the clip before third-grade Windermere Preparatory School students and their parents. 

Fifty students said they wanted to do something about it. 

“One of the parts of that clip that moved them a lot was there was a family and they had to put everything in storage,” Amy Healy, one of the parent leaders, said. “There was a little girl talking about how they lost the storage unit and all her Barbies were in there. And it was just heartbreaking. And they connected so much to that hearing a kid say they lost their toys.” 

From that day, the 2021 Club began. The club is a parent-child participation organization and is led by Healy and fellow parents Tara Harned, Amanda Vo and Amy Steppie. 

The club is named 2021 after the graduating class that started the club. Each year, the older students present to a new class of third-graders and invite them to join the club. 

“Seeing people on the side of the road with nothing to eat — no money — it made me want to help out.”— Franchot Valdez

 

“Seeing people on the side of the road with nothing to eat — no money — it made me want to help out,” Franchot Valdez, one of the founding students of the group said.

Since its inception, the 2021 Club has worked with organizations in the community that serve homeless families. 

Each year, the club does a hygiene drive. The club started in 2012 by helping the Orlando Union Rescue Mission. They filled an entire van with hygiene products by getting other students to help and asking local dentist offices for donations. 

When the class of 2021 was in fifth grade, they visited the Orlando Union Rescue Mission and served cookies and other snacks to the people there. Many of the founding members consider this their favorite memory from the club. 

The club also hosts a dance party, which raised about $2,500 for Matthew’s Hope one year. It also hosts a Valentine’s Day sale at which it sells pencils and notepads shaped like hearts. 

The organization recently partnered with Bridges of Light, an organization that works with schools to give out clothing, school supplies and food to students in need. Students at Carver Middle School are able to earn “Carver Bucks” for good grades and behavior, and then are able to enter Kay’s Closet of Care and spend their dollars on school supplies, jewelry and any other donated items. 

Before Thanksgiving, Bridges of Light contacted the club and told them that the organization was in need of food. In one week, the club asked neighbors, friends and family members to donate food and delivered it to the organization.

Contact Jennifer Nesslar at [email protected].