Someone Cares Closet: Personal care product donation drive hosted by local childcare center

Someone Cares Closet (SCC), a project that grew out of a collaboration between the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) and Claire’s Corner Copia in New Haven, Connecticut in 2022, provides personal care and household cleaning products for families in need who receive services through the YCSC Outpatient Clinic.

This winter, a donation drive for SCC is underway, hosted by Phyllis Bodel Childcare Center in New Haven and organized by Selin Kelly, MSW, a second-year social work fellow at the YCSC. Donations of items including toilet paper, baby shampoo, laundry detergent, baby wipes, hair ties, toothpaste, toothbrushes, body wash, and more will be accepted at two center locations through March 2025.

Over the last two and a half years, an on-going collection of items has been underway at Claire’s on 1000 Chapel Street in New Haven in addition to direct donations via the SCC amazon wish list and SCC Target wish list. In the Fall, an inaugural donation drive was hosted by a local restaurant, Vina’s Wine and Tapas Restaurant.

The closet was developed jointly by YCSC Assistant Clinical Professor Carolina Rivera Parrott, LCSW and Claire’s Corner Copia owner and namesake Claire Criscuolo, RN to addresses hygiene poverty, a term used to describe the inability to afford everyday hygiene items that many people take for granted.

For more information about the current donation drive, reach out via e-mail to Selin Kelly.