Due to the developing Hurricane Helene, SCPS canceled all after-school activities and events, including the upcoming Avalanche’s Attic community night. Hearing the news of the cancellation on Sept. 24, event sponsor Erin Isaacs was disappointed that the community would be missing out on the support her store had to offer. Plans to reschedule the event are underway, but a date has not yet been announced.
“It’s disappointing because I know (based on some of the answers from the permission form questionnaire) that there are some families that are truly struggling,” Isaacs said. “So now it’s just reorganizing everything, changing the dates, changing the signs that I ordered, changing everything, but we’ll work through it.”
Immense support went into planning the event, especially from PTSA, volunteers and the community. Special education students even helped organize and sort through donations.
“Our School Advisory Council has given money toward the storage cabinets and stuff like that to try and support [the initiative], so it’s become a community event,” Frasca said.
Launched last year, Avalanche’s Attic was created to provide students in need access to second-hand clothing, shoes, hygiene products and more. Students can access it anytime during both lunches. Secretary Melissa Barnett, who planned to volunteer at the event, has seen the impact Avalanche’s Attic has had on students’ lives.
“I’ve seen them get things for themselves, for their relatives, different siblings [and] they light up,” Barnett said.
The store started as Isaacs’ brainchild, and as she shared her ideas with a supportive Frasca, a concrete plan began taking form. Isaacs’ desire to help students was sparked from her own experience with detrimental storm damage.
“In 2022, we noticed that a lot of our kids–after those really big hurricanes and the flooding that happened on Lockwood–lost their homes,” Isaacs said. “I was one of those people and thought, if I have a need, others are going to have a need [too].”
Both Frasca and Isaacs have noticed Hagerty students’ reputation as well-off and upper middle-class. However, the creation of Avalanche’s Attic brought awareness to the school’s often-overlooked population of students in need.
“People sometimes look at Hagerty as an affluent area and don’t realize that we have needs here too–sometimes on the outside, a kid looks okay, everything looks fine, they present fine, but really there’s an internal struggle,” Isaacs said.
When the community heard about Isaacs’ project, they did not hesitate to bring in donations and resources to support the store.
Frasca is grateful for all the extra help that went into making the store accessible to students.
“That’s the important thing about this community…we have a lot of people that are doing pretty well, and when they hear that [someone] needs help, they are always willing to make donations and jump in. We were just really blessed to have a good community and it’s a good community resource,” Frasca said.
