Are your kids’ drawers overflowing with perfectly good but seldom-worn clothing and shoes? Is your linen closet a tangle of extra towels and bedding?  Have pots, pans, and dishes completely overtaken your kitchen?

52 M.O.M.S. can help.  We now have space to house items to offer throughout the year to those in need in our community.  “The Gift Closet” best describes our intentions for this project, as we are committed to donating and offering items that we would consider “gifts.”

The Gift Closet will be filled with children’s clothing, infant necessities, small toys, books, and household items. These items will be given out in response to community needs identified by 52 M.O.M.S. members and requests by social service agencies on behalf of their clients. The leaders of this project are committed to maintaining a current list of items needed and items available to make sure that we can fill needs as they arise.

To maximize our space and collections, we have specific requests for this project.  When you consider items to donate, please remember that, like you, our time and resources are limited.  Paying to have unusable items hauled away creates an expense that we simply cannot afford.  For that reason, please make the types of donations listed below.  If you are in doubt about whether you should donate an item, ask yourself whether or not you’d be willing to offer it to your best friend and donate accordingly.  We want those we serve to feel loved and helped, and offering them high-quality items is one way to do that. 

Gift Closet Guidelines

What types of donations will be accepted?

How do I bag my donations?
Please place clothing in separate bags grouped by size and gender (for example, one bag may be filled with boy’s 4T items). For non-clothing donations, group like items together and place them in separate bags (for example, one bag may be filled with toys, another with books). Label each bag with the bag’s contents. You do not have to label each item, just the basic content information.

If I have a donation, whom do I contact?
Email our committee at thegiftcloset@52moms.org.  We will respond promptly and schedule a convenient time for drop off.

52 M.O.M.S. will sponsor a “housewarming” party to fill the gift closet on Saturday, February 14th. We’ll get started at 9 am at AAA Tag Storage on South Montgomery behind the public library. You can participate by showing up to donate or help sort items.  We will provide a light breakfast. 

Brookville Garden After-School Project

52 M.O.M.S. and a group of college freshman from Mississippi State's Day 1 Leadership Program are partnering together to make a difference in our community's children. The outreach is primarily for children residing in the Brookville Garden Area, a goverment housing neighborhood. Some of these children are at a higher risk of dropping out of school eventually. As a way to help provide these children with an alternative, we are providing a weekly activity and snack.

The efforts of this project will continue every Wednesday from 3:30-4:45 for the rest of the semester. Students are split into three groups by age and rotate through three stations: Craft/homework, Physical Activity, and Snack in twenty minute intervals. We have enlisted all kinds of volunteers to come share their expertise with the kids this spring from Tae-quan-do teachers, to firefighters, insect and reptile experts, sororities, and track coaches. We have been hosting between 30 and 50 children each week. The Appalachian Leadership Program will also send volunteer students from MSU to lead the children in an entrepreneurship workshop. They plan for the kids to sell their work at this Springs Art Festival.

We are now partnering with Emerson Family Programs in this venture. They are addressing parent needs with educational workshops while we work with the children. Additionally, they have graciously agreed to let us use the King Community Center for our activities.

Below is a center schedule for each week and a list of each center's leader.