girls clothes

Free Food, Clothing Distribution At West Side Park In Newark - Newark, NJ Patch
Girls alleged abuse at Circle of Hope Girls' Ranch for years. It stayed open until they got on TikTok. - NBC News
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the case of the 13-year-old girl strip-searched at school - The Washington Post
Lions help Bees dress for success | Local News | tullahomanews.com - Tullahoma News and Guardian

Free Food, Clothing Distribution At West Side Park In Newark - Newark, NJ Patch

Posted: 25 Sep 2020 04:00 AM PDT

NEWARK, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of the United Community Corporation. Learn more about posting announcements or events to your local Patch site.

On Tuesday, Sept. 29, the United Community Corporation, Unstoppable Girls Foundation, and Walmart will team up to serve the city of Newark and host a free food and clothing distribution event.

The event will be held at West Side Park (600 S17th Street, Newark, NJ 07103) and will take place from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Free food packages will be available for pickup courtesy of United Community Corporation, while fall clothing for men, women and children will be provided by Unstoppable Girls Foundation and Walmart The Unstoppables Clothing Distribution.

"The United Community Corporation and Unstoppable Girls collaboration event will meet the community's needs for not only food and clothing but resources for youth programming, energy bill assistance and our emergency shelter," United Community Corporation Grant Compliance Manager Alena Minatee said. "The collaboration that Unstoppable Girls has developed with Walmart has been able to meet a variety of needs. One of those is clothing assisting families who may have loss income streams during the pandemic or the fear of going to the store with clusters of people."

The coronavirus pandemic hit an already vulnerable Essex County hard. Prior to the pandemic, 33.81-percent or 261,755 individuals in Essex County were living in households with income below 200-percent of the Federal Poverty Level. In April, the unemployment rate in Essex County jumped from 4.6-percent to 16.8-percent and hasn't dropped below 16.6-percent since.
United Community Corporation, Unstoppable Girls Foundation, and Walmart recognized the increase of people in-need and are leaping into action.

"The greatest benefit of this is being able to provide families and children impacted by the pandemic with brand new clothing and resources," Unstoppable Girls Foundation founder Caryl Lucas said. "Our goal is to increase greater access to those in need and opportunities for girls to give back through volunteerism and social responsibility. The Walmart partnership is aimed at supporting community-based organizations like United Community Corporation."

United Community Corporation, which currently serves the Greater Essex County area, sees this partnership as an opportunity to branch out and serve even more vulnerable communities.

"UCC has been providing clothing and food to families in need since 1964," Minatee said. "However this partnership allows families from not only Essex County, but other counties to be able to benefit from our services and programs. UCC's mission is not only serving Essex County, but people as a whole. This extension creates a space where we are truly fulfilling that mission."

United Community Corporation has been a staple in Essex County for over 50 years and has stepped up to serve the community during the pandemic.

It has hosted three massive food distributions since July in collaboration with Roosevelt Community 4U and Bessie Green Community Inc. to serve over 60-thousand individuals. Last month it held a backpack, school supplies and food distribution event in partnership with multiple non-profit organizations throughout Newark.

UCC operates the Fulton Street emergency shelter, which has run 24-hours a day during the pandemic, and the Champion Street food pantry, which serves meals daily from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. and provides many local churches and partners with food. The community action agency is multidimensional and looks to help people in all walks of life throughout our community with housing, rental and energy assistance programs, homelessness prevention and foreclosure prevention programs, senior services and youth development programs.

Don't forget to visit the Patch Newark Facebook page. Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com

Girls alleged abuse at Circle of Hope Girls' Ranch for years. It stayed open until they got on TikTok. - NBC News

Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:51 AM PDT

During Blaze Lutwinksy's first night at the ranch in 2011, she said, a medical condition caused her to vomit a bologna sandwich Boyd and Stephanie ordered her to eat.

"I ate the bologna, I threw up, immediately I was restrained in my own vomit," Lutwinksy, who was 16 at the time, said. "He told me I better get used to following rules or this was going to be my life."

The Householders permitted residents to call their parents once every other week for 15 minutes on speakerphone. If girls said they wanted to come home or complained about their treatment at the ranch, 17 former residents and staff members said, the Householders would end the call immediately. Letters home were also censored by Boyd, they said.

For more of NBC News' in-depth reporting, download the NBC News app

Dajah Potter, 20, said social services employees came to the ranch four times when she was there from 2016 through 2018. If they came when the girls were outside, she said, the Householders would instruct everyone to come inside and into a secluded room to keep them out of sight of the social workers.

"They were afraid we'd tell the truth, which is me being abused," Potter said. She said Boyd once sprayed her with a hose outside in the winter because he thought she was faking being sick.

Stephanie said there are witnesses who can refute the abuse allegations, but declined to share their names.

"There are hundreds of girls who have been helped and chosen to make better decisions and become better persons in society," Stephanie said in an email. "Unfortunately, there are a few girls who choose to continue their past acts and some are now making false accusations."

Complaints started the year the ranch opened

Amanda Householder's relationship with her parents deteriorated as she got older. As a teenager, she often filled in as a staff member, but she said her parents also placed her in the program as a punishment. She said the extent of her bad behavior "consisted of thinking boys were cute and listening to Green Day." She moved in with other family members in 2009, at 17, and the next year moved to California.

For the first few years on her own, Amanda pushed back on many of the stories from former residents. She antagonized them on internet forums when they spoke negatively about Circle of Hope. But after having a child, and once she began talking directly with former residents, she began to reevaluate. She said she noticed their stories lined up. Amanda apologized for not believing them earlier, and for not intervening when she still lived at the ranch.

"I knew the restraining was bad," said Amanda, who is now a stay-at-home mom, "but I just kick myself in the ass for not standing up against it back then. I felt guilty, I felt like it was my fault, but that's one of the things I worked through in therapy. I had to get over that."

In 2018, Amanda connected with Michelle Nickerson, who had been trying to report concerns about Circle of Hope to the Missouri Department of Social Services because her 16-year-old sister was at the ranch. Nickerson had been in touch with the Missouri Highway Patrol, and together, they began referring former residents to speak with the officers.

Girls work at the Circle of Hope Girls' Ranch in Missouri.Courtesy of Amanda Householder

The state highway patrol gave a report on its Circle of Hope investigation to an assistant U.S. attorney, who declined last year to prosecute, according to an email from the sergeant who handled the investigation. The highway patrol refused to release a copy of the report because it's being used in the current investigation, and the sergeant declined to comment to avoid interfering with it. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office also declined to comment.

Complaints about Circle of Hope date back to the year it opened.

Genevieve Dean said she called the sheriff's department and social services in 2006 and asked them to perform a welfare check at the ranch because she worried her 15-year-old daughter, Amanda, was being abused. In a letter home, Amanda had included a secret safe word she had with her mother to signal someone was hurting her. Amanda said in an interview she was only fed quarter portions of meals, her medication was withheld and she saw Boyd smack girls. Both the sheriff's department and social services declined to conduct a welfare check, Dean said, and she pulled her daughter out of Circle of Hope.

The following year, in 2007, Donna Maddox said she pulled her daughter, Kelsey, then 14, out of the ranch after her first visit, when she saw bruises on her that Kelsey said came from restraints. Maddox said she reported the school to several state agencies, including a consumer complaint to the Missouri Attorney General's Office because Circle of Hope had falsely claimed to be registered with the state's education department.

The Missouri Attorney General's Office said it received three consumer complaints regarding Circle of Hope, and each one had been "referred to the local prosecutor or proper authority." The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said it received three complaints about Circle of Hope since 2008, but has no oversight of private schools. The Missouri Department of Social Services said there were four reports of misconduct at Circle of Hope since 2006 that the agency substantiated: one of neglect, one of physical abuse and neglect, and two regarding sexual abuse.

The social services department said it cannot reveal when those reports were filed, who was accused or what action, if any, was taken.

"I wouldn't think to ask, 'Are you providing water to the girls?'"

Michelle Stoddard, mother of former resident

Parents said it's unacceptable that those complaints were not disclosed by the state.

"Why is that not a public record or known?" asked Brian Stoddard, a pastor in Washington state, who placed his daughter Emily at Circle of Hope in late 2017 when she was 15 and struggling with anger issues. "If I had seen that, I certainly would've changed my mind."

Brian and his wife, Michelle, removed Emily in July this year after learning more about the ranch from former residents online. On the way out, Emily said, several girls gave her phone numbers for their families on slips of paper that she stuck in the sole of her shoe. "They asked me to shut the place down or get them in a safer place," she said.

The Stoddard family went to the sheriff's department to give a statement before leaving town, they said. Emily said that Boyd handcuffed girls frequently as a punishment, and performed what he called "swats," which were spankings with a leather belt or paddle. The girls often did manual labor outside in 90-degree heat with no sunscreen and only one water bottle among 24 girls, Emily said.

"I wouldn't think to ask, 'Are you providing water to the girls?'" Michelle Stoddard said. "It's just cruelty. Emily had a pretty bad sunburn and they sent her back out to work the next day, and now she has scars from sunburn. It's ridiculous. It's evil."

Brian said before they left the ranch, Boyd requested that Emily sign a letter stating she had not been abused in any way. Brian refused, but two other parents and two former residents said they did sign similar forms, fearful Boyd wouldn't let them leave otherwise.

Getting action on TikTok

The video Amanda Householder received from Askins does not show Boyd on screen, but she and several former residents said they instantly recognized his voice. The man is heard advising residents to attack a girl: "Knock her out." Emily Stoddard, who was still at the ranch then, said Boyd was speaking to them in their dorm through an intercom system, and he was chastising a girl for drinking water without permission. Askins said he called child protective services when he left the ranch.

Amanda posted the video on Facebook and Twitter in March. Miranda Sullivan, a co-host of the podcast "Troubled," about the troubled teen industry, saw it, and invited her on the show. Later, Sullivan suggested that Amanda start posting on TikTok, where others had been sharing their experiences at troubled teen programs.

"The benefit of TikTok is the kids who get activated and are amazingly useful," Sullivan said. "With Circle of Hope, it got enough random people who were highly motivated to nag the local offices in Missouri who are not used to this much attention."

As Amanda and former Circle of Hope residents began to post their own TikTok videos, a Cedar County sheriff's deputy messaged her on Facebook on May 17 and said their office wanted to talk. The sheriff's department told NBC News an investigation remains ongoing, and is being led by the state's social services department. Gaither said his office is still waiting for them to complete their investigation and present a report to him.

"If they're not careful, they can kill you."

Carrie Reeves, former resident

Multiple former residents said they felt an urgency to try to shut down Circle of Hope after seeing a video of Cornelius Frederick, 16, being restrained at a youth facility in Michigan in April. Cornelius died two days later.

"That was always what I feared could happen," said Carrie Reeves, who was a resident at Circle of Hope in 2014 when she was 14 and recalled Boyd and Stephanie restraining her with help from six other girls. "They are sitting on you, they are inflicting so much pain on you. If they're not careful, they can kill you."

After the state removed all the girls from Circle of Hope in August, the Householders told the Kansas City Star that they would not reopen because they didn't want to deal with a "corrupt" sheriff's department. This week, the ranch property appeared listed for sale on several real estate websites. The Householders have also taken down the Circle of Hope website.

Amanda said she hasn't spoken with her parents since 2016. She said she feels relieved the ranch is closed, but she worries her parents will try to open another school, so she intends to continue pressing for criminal charges.

"I do know that what I'm doing is right," Amanda said, "and it makes it easier because I know my parents hate me for it."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the case of the 13-year-old girl strip-searched at school - The Washington Post

Posted: 25 Sep 2020 09:02 AM PDT

"After Redding was searched and nothing was found, she was put in a chair outside the vice principal's office for over two hours, and her mother wasn't called," Ginsburg noted during oral arguments. "What was the reason for … putting her in that humiliating situation?"

One of Ginsburg's liberal colleagues, fellow Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer, saw it a little differently. He said he had a hard time understanding the girl's claim that her rights had been violated.

"I'm trying to work out why is this a major thing to, say, strip down to your underclothes, which children do when they change for gym," Breyer said. "How bad is this?"

Ginsburg retorted that school officials had directed Redding "to shake (her) bra out, to shake, shake, stretch the top of (her) pants."

Lions help Bees dress for success | Local News | tullahomanews.com - Tullahoma News and Guardian

Posted: 25 Sep 2020 10:15 AM PDT

Bel-Aire Elementary School students who need an extra pair of socks or a clean pair of pants will be able to receive those clothes at no charge, thanks to a partnership between the school and the Downtown Lions Club.

According to second grade teacher Teresa Sebourn, the Lions Club has helped set up and fund a "clothes closet" for any student who may be in need of some article of clothing during the school year.

clothes closet receipt.JPG — Steven "Paco" Prince holds up the final receipt for the third Bel-Aire Clothes Closet shopping trip between Teresa Sebourn (left) and Amber Miller (right). The third shopping trip saw more than $800 worth of clothes for the clothes closet.
Erin McCullough photo

Sebourn told The News the Downtown Lions Club, with the help of Russ Barrett, set up the clothes closet in the fall of 2019. Since then, the Lions Club has purchased thousands of dollars' worth of clothes and shoes for the Bel-Aire Bees.

Through a variety of fundraisers, including an annual charity dinner and a golf tournament, the Downtown Lions Club is able to write a check for each shopping trip.

"We first shopped with them in October, and then the second time was probably in February or March, right before COVID," she said.

Each shopping trip sees school officials like Sebourn and school counselor Amber Miller snagging shirts, undergarments, pants, socks, shoes and more at Walmart for children who may need the clothes for a variety of reasons.

Teachers may notice students who wear clothes that are worn and threadbare or clothes that are too big or too small for their frames, Sebourn said. Students may also need clothes after playing outside if they get into some mud. Younger students may also have accidents during school hours, Sebourn added.

No matter the reason, Sebourn said, teachers will send those students up to the front office to talk to the secretary, who will go into the closet and pick out some things the children may need.

Getting the new item of clothing is not necessarily an act of charity, Sebourn said. Some parents may not need the replacement pants or shirts. If this is the case, Sebourn said, the parents may choose to wash the clothing and send it back with their child.

But for the parents and children who may need the new clothes, Sebourn said she's happy to be able to provide that child something they need.

Third shopping trip

On a Wednesday afternoon following a 1 o'clock dismissal, Sebourn, Miller and Steven "Paco" Prince, with the Downtown Lions Club, met at Walmart to embark on the third shopping trip.

According to Prince, the Lions Club is more than happy to provide the needed funds for the clothes closet at Bel-Aire.

"That's what we're about," he told The News. "That's why we signed up."

The Wednesday excursion was the third shopping trip for the clothes closet, according to Sebourn, and there was a special request this time around.

"Our nurse asked for a fanny pack for one of our diabetic girls to have to put her supplies in," Sebourn said. According to the nurse, the bag the student currently uses isn't large enough to fit everything she may need in it, so Sebourn made sure to grab one.

"We always send out an email asking who needs what and if we have any special circumstances," Sebourn added.

Generally speaking, Sebourn said, the shopping trips take about an hour to grab all the items needed and to calculate just how much their haul will cost.

amber miller shoes.JPG — Bel-Aire Elementary School Counselor Amber Miller looks at a pair of children's shoes during a shopping trip for the Bel-Aire Clothes Closet.
Erin McCullough photo

A large portion of each shopping trip is dedicated to restocking the items that leave the closet the quickest: clothes for kindergarteners and first graders.

"We always dedicate a lot toward kindergarten and first grade, because a lot of times they're the ones that have issues soiling [their clothes] and getting in mud," Sebourn said. "We always try to keep more of that."

The group also snags a few pairs of shoes and more versatile clothes, like jogging pants or T-shirts.

"We mostly buy things like jogging pants, because if you buy jeans, they don't fit each kid the same way," she said.

Given the time of year, Sebourn added, she and Miller were also on the hunt for long-sleeved shirts and sweatshirts.

No matter what items they need to get, Sebourn said she and Miller always try to get "the most bang for our buck."

"We try to buy some of the Walmart brand stuff so we can get more," she said.

By the time Sebourn, Miller and Prince finished their searches for shoes, shirts, pants and undergarments, the trio had two carts full of clothing. A preliminary calculation of the items was estimated to be just over $800.

Before carting their items to the cash register for a final total, Sebourn said having the Lions Club's help with the clothes closet was appreciated deeply.

"It's just awesome to know that when children have a need, that they don't have be embarrassed," she said. "If they have an accident, if they're wearing clothes that are too small or too large, a teacher will see that and try to help provide a need when they can."

She specifically thanked Russ Barrett with the Lions Club, as well as Prince for his help that Wednesday, for helping provide children in need with the new clothes.