B E H I N D / T H E / B A R

WAIT! Don’t Really drop – your – drawers! I mean, keep your pants on, but let me tell you about a really cool way you can help in our community.

Kelly & Eric Andrews and a team of volunteers from the Nehemiah Project, provide backpacks and school supplies to hundreds of students in 11 of our inner city Title 1 schools every year in Chattanooga.  Additionally, they volunteer at these same schools throughout the year helping out in classrooms, tutoring, reading to and with students.  One of the greatest needs that they have discovered is a very basic need for underwear.

Now I know that seems like a weird need, but imagine being a first grader on the play ground in an intense game of freeze tag, and needing to go to the bathroom, but not wanting to miss out on a second of play time.  Then the urge hits you, but you don’t want to quit playing, then you realize you really gotta go, and . . . . oops you didn’t make it to the restroom in time.  Most of these schools keep extra clothes on hand for “oops” moments like that.

Underwear.  Its a basic need that school administrators discovered through those “oops” moments that many students don’t even have on a regular basis.  So that’s where Kelly stepped up and began asking people to “Drop Your Drawers.”

At Cadence we have a drop off bin, where we encourage our customers to bring in a package of new underwear for kids, from Elementary all the way up to High School.  We’re even telling folks that if they’ll “Drop Your Drawers” we’ll give you a free 12oz cup of coffee.

Would you help us spread the word?  Who knew that something so basic, so easy to assume that everyone has, was such a real need for some of the precious kids in our community?  “Drop Your Drawers” is a simple way to help meet that need.

Thanks in advance for helping and sharing.