Shoes hustle on the ground as students enter their chemistry class and head straight for the wooden cabinet. Chatter fills the room and the sweet smelling perfume bottles open as students grab a variety of products, ranging from deodorant to hairclips to pencils to heating pads, before heading to their seat.
Kelly Stephens teaches chemistry in room 2004 and has set up an area in his classroom where students can grab a wide variety of hygiene products, clothing, and school supplies donated from students, teachers and parents.
“I started the hygiene closet because I knew that there was a need for kidsto have stuff,” Stephens said. “I introduced the hygiene closet and told them that it is free for them to use. They don’t have to tell me what they’re taking, they can take what they need, when they need. That right there starts a relationship between me and my students. That they know that I care about them and when they know that you care about them, they’re way more willing to work for you.”
Initially, Stephens funded the hygiene closet himself. After opening up an Amazon Wishlist Stephens received donations from students, parents and followers on his TikTok account, with almost 100,000 followers.
“Students always tell me if I’m out of something or something needs to be refilled,” Stephens said. “A lot of times they will bring stuff. If they have extra stuff at home or whatever. On the TikTok side, it wouldn’t be near as big as it is now without people suggesting things, things that I never even would have thought of. It was kind of surreal because it’s like, first of all, how do 100,000 people on TikTok even know who I am? That’s crazy. They don’t know me, but yet they’re still just based on a video that I posted, they’re willing to spend their own money to buy things for my classroom. Things that they’re never gonna see and they’re never gonna see the benefits of. Besides me telling them, thank you. Yet they’re still willing to send stuff to a total strangers’ classroom. It makes me feel really good that many people are willing to do that.”
The hygiene closet positively affects the whole class as well as individualstudents. Sophomore Spencer Fechner has bought and donated Gold Bond supplies and chips to Stephens class.
“It made me feel good because I could help other people get food,” Fechner said. “I know that a lot of people who don’t have food regularly can come to this class and get food whenever they want. I have a couple of friends that come to this class [to get] something in their stomach because they don’t eat at home.”
Stephens said he is aware of the hardship students go through and has been proactive to supply the school’s food pantry with 20 full boxes of food and after going viral on TikTok, Stephens also provided a freezer for the pantry. The pantry feeds approximately 30 families providing breakfast, lunch and dinner for families all year round.
“The ICAP teacher Ms. K, who is in charge of it, sent me a list of everything that she needed for the food pantry and I put all that on my wish list, made a video, and got every single one of those things filled. They needed a deep freezer to keep meat frozen. I was able to help stock them up and get a lot of stuff for them so that they can make sure that the kids have a little bit of food right now.”
Over the years, Stephens has had to overcome challenges. In his classroom, Stephens has stored boxes under three lab tables and has also struggled with disruptions in class.
“The biggest challenge is having enough space,” Stephens said. “Kids coming in multiple times during the day, interrupting my class, and leaving their class. Eventually I had enough stuff where I put another hygiene closet outside. Now students don’t have to knock on my door and interrupt my class, they can just get what they need. The closet is kind of evolving into something different.”
Although running a hygiene closet all by yourself can be challenging, Stephens finds motivation in his students’ encouragement and gratitude.
“It’s hard to keep the hygiene closet running,” Stephens said. “It constantly needs to be refilled, constantly needs new things put into it, constantly needs to be kept up with. So, when I get thank you notes and I get kids telling me, ‘You really saved my life because I needed this and you had it,’ it helps me to know I’m doing the right thing. It’s worth it.”
It is not only students that are appreciative of Stephen’s work, but teachers as well. SPED teacher Jennifer Pratt has worked with Stephens in the science department for years. Now that she is working inclusively with Stephens, she has seen first-hand the impact of the hygiene closet.
“It makes my heart feel great to know that I’ve got a coworker who has so much passion for not only his job and subject, but for students,” Pratt said. “It just makes me have a very positive outlook on what people can do, because he touches people’s lives more than he realizes. Everything he does for his students he does from the heart. He’s a teacher that takes everything with passion. I feel very fortunate to be able to work with Mr. Stephens.”
The hygiene closet has inspired many other ideas for Stephens to help others around the school and in other schools including Leander Middle School, Running Brushy Middle School, and elementary schools.
“I have some little, three drawer things that I wanted to put in all the girls’ bathrooms with some feminine hygiene products,” Stephens said. “But there’s nowhere to put them. I need a shelf or a stool or something. So that’s my goal, is to have [hygiene products] more accessible in the bathrooms. Another goal is to make ‘weekend hygiene kits’ for kids to take home if they need stuff at home. I think ultimately, a goal would be to have my own, if there’s an extra classroom or something, to set it up like a free store for kids to shop for what they need. I also want to help our feeder schools get a hygiene closet set up.”
Stephen’s hygiene closet in his classroom where it generally supplies over 30-40 students per day conservatively costing approximately several hundred dollars per week to refill.
“Just knowing that I’m helping kids and making their day better, making their day a little easier, making sure they have the things they need to feel good about themselves,” Stephens said. “To feel clean, to feel like they’re presentable, or they fit in. Just making kids feel good about themselves. You’re safe with me.”
