LEWISTON — This past summer, Allison Lytton cleaned out her closet. Some things didn’t fit. Others weren’t quite her style anymore. But they were good pieces, she thought, that someone could use.

Maybe that someone was in her new school community, where many families live below the poverty line and professional attire for work or school can be too expensive to buy.

“I thought maybe I could bring it in and offer it up to parents,” said Lytton, family engagement coordinator for the new Robert V. Connors Elementary School.

When other staff and community members heard about Lytton’s plan, donations began pouring in.

Last week, Connors Elementary opened the Success Closet, a once-empty first-grade classroom now filled with suit jackets and ties, dresses, slacks, shoes, children’s clothing, winter wear, accessories, intimate apparel and more. While many schools provide free clothing to students in need, Connors is one of a few schools in the area to offer clothes to parents as well.

“If they’re in need of clothing, or a coat or boots, whatever is going to help them be successful in their daily lives, in their jobs, in their goals, we want them to have that accessible at no cost,” Lytton said. “If they went to Goodwill, they’d still have to pay. But we can offer that at no cost because we have a community that supports us.”

The Success Closet hasn’t stopped at clothing. With donations from the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Auburn and packing help from student volunteers from Lewiston High School and the Lewiston Regional Technical Center, the Success Closet also offers bags of food for students to take home each weekend.

Of the 730 Connors students in prekindergarten through sixth grade, 471 have signed up for the free food. That’s about 64% of the school.

“Which I think speaks volumes about the need that we have here in our building,” Principal Sara Sims said. “And by being able to do this, I think it helps bring our community closer. It lets them know that we’re here to support them. It lets them know that we value them and care about them and they are part of our community.”

Connors Elementary opened this school year, merging the former Martel and Longley elementary schools into a single, new building. Connors draws students from various parts of the city, including more rural areas and the downtown, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the state. Some families have lived in Maine for generations, while others are new immigrants.

“We’re really trying to kind of meet families where they’re at, build a bridge between school and home,” Lytton said. “And make sure that they understand we’re here to support their child but also support their household, because without a healthy household the kiddos are going to have a hard time coming and being accessible for what we need to teach them.”

The school provides free lunches to all students, and about 80% of them participate in Connors’ breakfast program. But on weekends — when there is no school and no school-offered meal — food can be scarce for some students.

When she was a teacher, Lytton saw it firsthand.

“You can tell on Monday who came in and hasn’t had a healthy meal, a full meal, since Friday,” she said. “They’re tired. They really go through their breakfast quickly. They’re asking others for some food. They try to stock food. We have some kiddos that will eat very minimal and then they’ll put it all in pockets or in backpacks because they’re thinking, ‘Gee, I need something to eat later as well.’ At 5 and 6 years old, they shouldn’t have to think like that.”

Connors will receive about 3,000 pounds of free food every other week from Good Shepherd. This week’s delivery included canned spaghetti sauce and pasta, apples, apple sauce, broccoli, cauliflower, oatmeal and cereal bars, enough to provide each family with a meal, a kid-friendly breakfast and a couple of snacks. Siblings can get a bag each.

While food will only be delivered twice a month, Lytton will distribute bags of food to students every week. During Good Shepherd delivery weeks, bags will include fresh produce; off-weeks will focus on canned and other nonperishable food.

Because Good Shepherd relies so much on donations, Lytton — and her families — don’t know what they’ll get until the food bank truck arrives.

“I was prepared for, like, 1,300 pounds of eggplant,” Lytton said Thursday, the school’s first delivery day. “Luckily, that didn’t happen.”

Both clothes and food are available to anyone in the Connors school community, regardless of income.

“On paper it might look like you’re doing really good, but you’re struggling for whatever reason. It could be illness, it could be going through a separation or a divorce. I’ve been there,” said Lytton, who used a food program when she was a working mom going through a divorce. “I’m not here to judge. If they need it and it’ll help their kids and their family, I’m all for it.”

That includes staff members.

“We’ve had ed techs, janitors, night custodial staff that have come in and said, ‘I’m kind of in need of this or that,'” Lytton said.  “And we’re here.”

She would like, eventually, to see similar programs in other Lewiston schools. But that will take funding for more positions like hers, which is part-time and paid for by a grant. And it will take more donations.

“I think there’s a need everywhere,” she said.

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