Closets For The Community: The Broadmoor Boutique provides free clothing for all of the SMSD.

Inside room 18 at SM North, every first Wednesday and third Tuesday of the month, the Broadmoor Boutique is open from 3-7 p.m., providing affordable clothing for students, staff and families across the SMSD.

The boutique is an extension of the Broadmoor Building, a clothing donation center, and is led by teachers and job coaches Erin Adan at SM North and Amanda Danforth at SM East. The boutique provides an affordable clothing option while promoting the idea of reusing items rather than throwing them away.

“One of our main goals is to go green, reuse, reduce and repurpose,” Danforth said. “To stop purchasing things so that there's less of the landfills and more of reusing things.”

All of the clothes from the boutique are donated to the Shawnee Mission community. That being said, while anyone can donate, the boutique primarily only wants people in the SMSD to shop there, according to Adan and Danforth.

When someone is looking to drop off a donation, they can put their items in a bin outside of SM North, anytime, any day. Donors can also contact Adan or Danforth to arrange an alternative drop-off.

The boutique is also in the process of putting another donation bin outside of SM East. Adan and Danforth hope this will bring more attention to the boutique while also making it easier to drop off donations.

While the boutique is primarily run by Adan and Danforth, the special education students at SM North handle most of the hands-on tasks, from sorting through clothes to color-coordinating different hoodies.

As part of Adan and Danforth's job- coaching role, these tasks help students develop real-world and vocational skills in a school setting. The special education students sort, organize and distribute the donated clothes. They also wash and dry items, gaining hands-on experience that helps develop skills for possible future jobs.

“[Working] in the boutique allows the students to gain retail-related skills [moving forward],” Adan said.

The boutique offers a wide variety of clothing to suit a range of tastes and styles. Jackets, shirts, pants and sweatshirts are all things you could find while shopping in the store. The boutique has homecoming and prom dresses as well as suits for upcoming school dances.

The boutique also offers volunteering hours. By contacting either Adan or Danforth, people can reserve the boutique to help sort, organize and prepare the clothes.

Community members can also contribute by donating gently used clothing.

“I think what they're doing is really cool,” sophomore Emma Walker said. “I would love to potentially donate some clothes that I have one day.”

Despite its major success so far, such as giving away over two thousand clothes in the past six months, according to Adan, the boutique is working on a few improvements.

According to Adan and Danforth, the limited space in its current classroom makes it difficult to display all items and keep areas organized. With a larger space, it will be easier to store clothing, maintain tidiness and create a more comfortable shopping experience for guests.

The boutique also hopes to expand its hours in the future, moving beyond its current schedule to possibly opening multiple days or even once each week.

The added time would give students, staff and families more opportunities to browse the boutique and access the clothing they need.

While the boutique works to overcome these challenges, it also aims to increase community involvement by raising awareness of its mission. They plan to post on social media and hang posters around the school to advertise their boutique.

“If more people were to know what the boutique was about, the more people would want to come check it out,” Adan said.

Adan and Danforth plan on hosting additional donation drives, special activities and events to engage the SMSD community. The two also plan to take collaborative photo shoots to promote the boutique. This will not only showcase what the boutique has to offer, but also inspire people to donate, volunteer and shop.
“I think the more people who know about it, then they'll fall in love, too,” Danforth said.