New Things Happening at The Mission

In an effort to help one of the most impoverished and under-performing middle schools in Utah, The Rescue Mission of Salt Lake gave away free designer jeans to teens that attended “Back to School Night” at Glendale Middle School August 12.

Over 600 pairs of name-brand jeans were given to students and an additional 2,000 pieces of men’s, women’s and kid’s clothing (special thanks to South Mountain Community Church for donating these 2,000 items of clothing!) were given to the families of students that came to back to school night.

Additionally, the Rescue Mission donated 300 hundred more jeans to Glendale Middle for its new “incentive” program being developed by Principal John Erlacher. The program seeks to reverse the trend of poor attendance and poor performance at Glendale Middle. In the 2008-09 school year, state education data showed only 29 percent of students at Glendale were able to pass their math proficiency test. Erlacher says his school also struggles with truancy and lackluster performance when kids do attend class.

The school’s incentive program will seek to give free jeans to kids that meet certain benchmarks, like attending class for 30 days in row and other performance-based achievements. The hope is the free jeans incentive will motive kids to commit to education.

Rescue Mission of Salt Lake Executive Director Chris Croswhite said the Mission wants to help Glendale students take their education seriously so they don’t struggle in life and end up needing the services of a homeless shelter in adulthood. Dropping out of school and using drugs and alcohol are huge risk factors that often lead to homelessness later in life. Croswhite said the clothing items and the incentive campaign can hopefully make a difference in lives of at least some Glendale students.