The Fountain Hills High School chapter of Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) recently wrapped up the donation drive for its year-long service project, Falcons 4 Fosters, resulting in about 9,000 new and used clothing items being donated by local students and community members to be utilized in an upcoming clothing boutique for Valley foster kids.

FCCLA advisor Claire McWilliams said the donation drive was a huge success, with Ms. Catherine’s class winning the Fountain Hills Charter School competition for most items donated and the high school sophomore class winning on the FHHS campus.

Along with the high school and charter school, Christ’s Church of Fountain Hills and the Balzarini/Jelacic family business were also huge contributors to the project, helping ensure that area foster children will have a massive selection of clothes to pick from during the upcoming boutique.

Also bolstering the event’s success was a donation from the high school Key Club totaling $1,219. Key Club members raised the funds through a car wash and decided to donate the funds to benefit the Falcons 4 Fosters project.

According to McWilliams, there was no doubt in her mind that Fountain Hills would once again come out in full force to support their cause.

“In previous drives, the town has always supported us. It’s a win-win, cleaning out the closets and giving to a worthy cause at the same time,” she added.

“We haven’t decided on how the boutique will be handled yet. We’ll be working with a non-profit to make it happen, but whether we set up a separate boutique or a section in a boutique that already exists hasn’t been decided yet.”

Matthew Seiwert, finance director of FCCLA, said he’s excited to see this limb of the F4F project come to fruition.

“We appreciate everything [the community] has done to help out, because this is a really important cause,” Seiwert said.

“Some of these foster kids don’t necessarily have their own nice things yet, and we want to treat them with this.”

FCCLA Community Service Director Logan Cain said the boutique will give foster kids an opportunity to pick out their own clothes, giving the chance to go to school and venture into their communities in clothing they’re comfortable with.

“A lot of these kids, especially teenagers, maybe don’t have clothes that they can feel confident in, or feel like they’re wearing something really nice,” he continued.

“They have a very low budget to purchase clothes every year so, for them to be able to walk in and choose clothes they personally want to wear is going to mean a lot.”

Cain said that FCCLA members personally okayed every piece of clothing that was donated, guaranteeing that the boutique will offer quality clothing that the kids will be excited to wear.

“We’ve got a lot of brand new items, too, with the tags still on them and everything,” McWilliams concluded.

“We envision the kids being able to walk in and find exactly what they’re looking for.”