Sacramento City Unified first-ever hygiene drive collects items for unhoused students

The Sacramento City Unified School District serves more than 40,000 students with a wide range of needs. That includes many students who are experiencing homelessness. 

Between 2019 and 2022, the number of homeless residents in Sacramento County grew 67%. Of the more than 9,000 people experiencing homelessness on any given night, 15% were families with children.

As one of the largest school districts in the area, SCUSD has been working to help unhoused students and their families, from free meals over the summer to winter jacket collections when the weather turns cold.

This month the district is adding a new program that underscores how great the need is now. A “hygiene drive” to collect donations ranging from soaps, shampoos and toothpaste to diapers, tampons and socks. Items can be dropped off through Dec. 22 at the district’s Serna Center offices at 5735 47th Ave. in Sacramento.

CapRadio Insight host Vicki Gonzalez spoke with Ashley Powers Clark, the district’s homeless education services program coordinator, about the drive and how people can help.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Interview Highlights

Around two-thirds of SCUSD students are on free or reduced lunch. And following the pandemic and the cost of living challenges in our area, how has that impacted Sac City Unified students and their families?

It's estimated that about 10% of that free and reduced meal population also qualifies as unhoused. As a school district, we have a broader definition of what it means to be unhoused. If you are doubled up, meaning you lost your housing and then you have to go share housing with a friend and you're in overcrowded housing. If you're living in a place that is not meant for human habitation, things like cars, tents, train stations. Hotels, motels and shelters also qualify. So when we think about that larger population, it's estimated that in our district there's probably about 3,500 unhoused students.

It's our responsibility to try to get them to school every day and make sure that they have the things that they need to succeed. School is really a saving grace for unhoused families, right? It is a point of stability that even if you lose your housing, if you can still stay connected to your school we are able to serve those families in some really profound ways. Maintaining connections to your friends, to your teachers, getting breakfast, getting lunch and you can also qualify to get supper. You can stay in the after-school program and be in a safe place for 10 hours. So I truly believe that of all the institutions, in the school district we are just so well situated to be able to have a real impact on these families' lives.

I've heard of winter jacket collections, food drives and other programs, but this was the first time I had heard of a hygiene drive within Sac City Unified. Has this been done before?

It has not been done before. 

When we think about hygiene items, it might not necessarily come to the fore. You think about clothes or you think about food. Hygiene items are so critical because parents take pride in what their kids look like. We see our kids as a reflection of us. And so enabling families to be able to have clean clothes, to be able to make sure your kids' teeth are brushed and their hair looks nice when they go to school, that's so important to our families and it's so important to our children.

One of the things that we don't think about is the importance of having dignity. So how do we help our children and families show up to school? Even when you're coming from these impossible situations, show up to school and have a sense of dignity in who you are and how you look because when that doesn't happen, the results can be so difficult for our children. Kids get bullied. It happens. And if you don't smell good or you look dirty or you look different, kids are gonna pick up on that. Kids are wonderful. I love them to the bottom of my heart, and they're also learning how to relate to one another and sometimes those things happen. 

The hygiene drive can help us address this really critical need as a department. We literally can't keep these things on the shelf. They're going out to our school sites in large quantities all the time. 

If people want to donate, what should they bring?

Honestly, we need everything. So everything you could think of to keep your kids clean. Shampoo, conditioner, lotion, diapers, baby wipes, deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste. Go through your morning routine, look at what you do and know that everybody else wants to do the same thing for those kids. 

We have a big blue bucket out at Serna. We're hoping that is overflowing because those things really help. The Homeless Services Program, we're really in this space of trying to adapt to this new reality, which is homelessness on a scale that we have never seen … How are we going to change in this moment? How are we going to adapt to the new reality that we see?

We are the best resources in our community, each other, person to person, organization to organization. I really believe that by building these networks of mutual assistance, that's the way we're going to adapt and survive this new reality because we want to do more than survive, but for a lot of people it is just about survival day to day.