We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dallas Bonavita. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dallas below.

Dallas, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

Note in the Pocket reduces educational inequity by addressing Clothing Insecurity

A little girl who never wanted to go to school got the courage to begin making friends and started asking her teacher for help – after receiving clothes from Note in the Pocket.

There was a teenage boy who was wearing outgrown shoes that were so painful when he walked – he turned out to be a really smart kid once we provided new shoes so he could focus on his school work.

Until very recently, we were heartbreakingly unaware of the systemic immobility and educational failure-to-thrive that so many of our children suffer because of sheer lack. And while we can’t fix everything….we CAN fix this.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

In 2011, while donating some of my children’s outgrown clothing I learned that in our school district there were 48,881 students living in poverty. I was heart-struck. This meant that 1 out of 3 students living in my county was homeless or impoverished. Learning that nearly 50,000 children whose parents couldn’t afford back-to-school clothing or new shoes or underwear when the old ones were outgrown hit me hard. I remembered how hard school was to navigate with ok clothing and realized how much worse it would be for children without. I knew I had to do something.

To fight this injustice, I began to volunteer with a local family ministry providing students with clothing. As the program developed, we applied for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and I became the first executive director. Note in the Pocket is an organization that fights educational inequity by addressing clothing insecurity. A community-powered program, we coordinate clothing drives throughout the year, recruit volunteer labor and build relationships with school social workers and agencies working with families in financial crisis. What began with one classroom of students getting a winter coat in the fall evolved into delivering mini-wardrobes of 2-weeks’ worth of quality clothing, tennis shoes and outerwear, new socks, and new underwear for each student referred, county-wide.

Next year, we will celebrate our 10th year as a nonprofit and will serve our 50,000th person since receiving our 501(c)(3) in 2013. This year, in 2022, we will have delivered over $1 million, approximately 150,000 donated clothing items to over 8,000 individuals, mostly children. Worked with over 3,000 volunteers who will have processed over 200,000 pounds of donated clothing. We don’t just love our children, we also love the planet.

What I am most proud of is that we have not only recognized a tragic educational failing on our parts by not realizing that when student’s basic clothing needs are not met, success feels unachievable, we have also done something about it. We have created a system that can be replicated statewide, nationally and in many instances, internationally.

How’d you meet your business partner?

How the family ministry, which eventually grew into the nonprofit, Note in the Pocket, began.

In 2005, a recent college graduate (we’ll call her Margaret) began her dream job—teaching kindergarten to an underserved population in an impoverished school. With a student population beset with all the problems commonly associated with poverty, she quickly realized that her training had not addressed the realities of teaching students who were struggling mightily outside the classroom. Margaret shared her concerns with her mother (we’ll call her Susan). Together, they decided that they would focus on providing one basic need—the lack of seasonally appropriate clothing for school. It was late September and Margaret had noticed that many of the children did not seem to have sweaters or jackets. What would they do when it got really cold?

Margaret and Susan purchased coats from store sales and thrift shops, and Margaret was able to send a coat home with each child in her class before the temperature dropped to below freezing. The next day, some of the coats were returned. It never occurred to some of these families that the coat was a gift for the child to keep. The school’s social worker prepared a note explaining that the coats were donations from the community. A copy of the note was then inserted into the pocket of each item.

Things quickly snowballed as others learned of their generosity. The following year, each Kindergarten-aged child in Margaret’s school was given a coat. By the third year, they were able to provide a coat for each child in the entire school. What started as a one-family ministry in a single classroom in a single school has now spread to our entire community. A simple “Note in the Pocket” can have an immeasurable impact on the life of a child when it conveys a powerful message—you are loved.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Note in the Pocket created a unique identification and delivery system designed to not just provide quality clothing to students but to also provide sufficient, well-fitting and seasonably appropriate clothing. The clothing closet, thrift store and shop-for-free programs that we were familiar with more often that not, lacked the quality and quantity that our families needed so we built a referral-based system that supplied mini-wardrobes, in their unique sizes, for our kids.

The pandemic brought our system to a screeching halt. When our social and case workers were unable to meet with or visit the families, our ability to deliver clothing with dignity and love stopped. Meanwhile, the season was changing and our children continued to grow, many right out of the clothing they owned. To address this problem, we began partnering with emergency food distribution efforts and we shifted to a new emergency clothing distribution program, called Pocket Pop Ups.

We hosted emergency clothing events where individuals could “shop” for free and pick out clothing needed for any member of their household. In our version, we provided very high-quality pre-owned and new clothing in all sizes from infants to plus-sized adults. Our tables contained orderly, by size, tops, and bottoms so outfits could be created easily and families of all ages could select whatever they needed including shoes and new socks, and underwear, as available. We hosted our first Pocket Pop Up event in July 2020 at the Boys & Girls Club and in 2020 we held fourteen events across our geographic service area, providing clothing for over 1,400 individuals. This has become a permanent clothing distribution event and to date we have hosted 33, clothing over 4,500 individuals in Wake County and Durham.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.noteinthepocket.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noteinthepocket/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NoteInThePocket
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/note-in-the-pocket/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NoteinthePocket
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHXgHi_cS8o