News Briefs: Catch up on school and local news

On March 14, Plato’s Closet at 6620 Johnson Drive broke their donation record by giving a retail estimate of almost $30,000 in clothes to the Broadmoor Boutique: a clothing store at SM North where SMSD families can shop free of cost.

Plato’s Closet owner and SM North graduate Jill Moxley explained she’s looked for ways to donate and give back to her SMSD community, ultimately landing on the Broadmoor Boutique.

“I know that lots of people are struggling financially right now,” Moxley said. “We thought it would be a blessing to students and families and we were so grateful that the Broadmoor Boutique said yes.”

To start, they bought almost $600,000 of clothes from members in the surrounding area in the hopes it was spent at other local businesses, according to Moxley. 

While Plato’s Closet donates everything from gift cards for school auctions at SM North and purchasing ads in the Harbinger, their donation to the Broadmoor Boutique is the largest one yet.  

Moxley stated that at Plato’s, clothes typically go through two to three price markdowns before being gifted to a charitable cause. But in the case of this donation, Plato’s gave the clothes away immediately.

“After items have gone through several clearance cycles, they get kind of picked over,” Moxley said. “So when we make a donation, it’s a big deal because there’s been a lot of staffing and energy and effort that’s gone into every single item.”

Plato’s Closet also employs the highest number of eighth grade students in the surrounding area to teach them time management skills, proper business etiquette and interpersonal skills, Moxley said. 

One employee is East sophomore Lauren Gantt who has worked for Plato’s closet for the last year and a half. 

Gantt said she wouldn’t want to work anywhere else during high school because of these generous donations. Gantt calls her coworkers her second family. 

“If I didn’t work at Plato’s, I feel like my life would be stagnant,” Gantt said. “Plato’s closet has made me realize that I do enjoy working in customer service and I’d like to pursue that as a future career because when I get to meet and talk to people it makes me feel happy. And hopefully, I make them happy.”

On March 21, the Department of State announced that due to budget cuts, African exchange students from nine countries won’t be able to visit and stay with their East host families. 

SMSD Job Skills Trainer Kathleen Frederick said she was heartbroken that for the first time in over a decade, African exchange students would be unable to visit.

“It took me four days before I could write back to Global Ties, because I was so disappointed,” SMSD Job Skills Trainer Kathleen Frederick said. “I had tickets on [May] 19th to take two girls to a Current game and I had tickets on the 13th to take two other students to a Sporting KC game.”

For over eight years, PAYLP has paired exchange students with host families from Kansas City so African students can visit the U.S. free of charge.

But for the second year, PAYLP has encountered problems with sending students to the U.S. 

In the spring of 2024, 35 students from nine countries in Africa entered a quarantine for 12 days after a traveler on their flight became ill with Measles. 

Fortunately, students spent two days with their host families before returning home, but it wasn’t the same as the two weeks volunteers had initially planned, as activities had to be cut short or eliminated altogether. 

Frederick said that after the last trip didn’t go as planned, she and other volunteers hoped to redeem themselves with a similar itinerary and the same host families this year.

Since the majority of host families are composed of seniors this year, they won’t get the opportunity to host again due to graduation. 

Senior and exchange student host in 2024, Nick True wished he had more time to hang out with his Namibian exchange student from last year — Cally Simushi Imwaka. But as he’s going to college next year, he won’t get the chance. 

“It’s really fun to find out about their culture and how they live and view the world coming from an entirely different country,” True said. “He walks six miles along a river to get to school and I found that incredibly inspiring that he was willing to put in that work just to get to school and be able to learn.”