NORWICH – With just a few days left of their annual Holiday Clothing Drive, the Norwich City School District and The Place are scrambling to fill the needs of local families this holiday season.

“There are still a lot of tags on the trees,” said Dave Sheldon, Executive Director of the Place, referring to the giving trees and snow men located at Wal Mart and each of the Norwich City Schools. Ornaments on those trees indicate specific needs for clothing items to fill the large volume of requests the program has received this year.

According to Sheldon, the trees will remain in place throughout the day on Thursday. Following that time, community members who still wish to donate can call The Place to learn what items are still needed. They can also call the school district, and ask to speak with one of the three social workers on staff, to obtain that information.

In addition to donations of new clothing items, monetary donations are also accepted. According to Norwich High School Social Worker Kelly Collins-Colosi, those funds are then used to purchases needed items.

This is by no means the first time the Norwich School District has held the Holiday Clothing Drive, but it may very well be the largest in terms of the number of families served.

“The district started doing this on a much smaller scale in the 1980s,” Colosi explained. It wasn’t until the last four or five years, that the need, and consequently the program, has grown to its current level.

That need continues to grow. Last year, the clothing drive benefited 200 families, providing clothes for more than 600 children. They have already exceeded that number of families, according to Stanford Gibson Primary School Social Worker Luann Kida. And the requests are still coming in.

These requests are initiated not only by the families in need, she reported, but also through referrals from friends, neighbors and other agencies.