NONPROFIT
BY SARA RODIA
Volunteers help organize and pack products.
COURTESY REFRESH FRISCO
From left, President and Founder Elizabeth Watkins , Advisory Council Member Susie Fogerson, and Operations and Inventory Manager Anja Newbury gather in the Refresh Frisco warehouse where donations are organized. Refresh Frisco Nonpro t provides hygiene products for Frisco ISD students A fter volunteering in Frisco ISD and seeing rsthand the need among students, February and May, according to organization o cials. Since that rst school year when products because of in ation, Watkins said. SARA RODIA COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
Distributed products include hairbrushes, deodorant and toothpaste.
COURTESY REFRESH FRISCO
GROWING DEMAND Refresh Frisco has seen the number of students it serves grow annually since the organization’s founding.
“A lot of stores, such as Walmart, cap what you can buy,” said Anja Newbury, Refresh Frisco’s operations and inventory manager. “We can buy maybe ve or 12 of something, but Anja will need 1,400,” Watkins added. Refresh Frisco provides complete privacy for the students served. FISD o cials assist the nonpro t in nding students in need and also refrains from providing student names—the district instead gives student ID numbers. “Lots of studies have shown that when kids feel good about them- selves on the outside, it helps build their con dence and helps them feel good about themselves on the inside,” Watkins said. “Every kid deserves ... to feel clean.”
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Elizabeth Watkins founded Refresh Frisco to provide hygiene products to students. Watkins also spent time volun- teering at Frisco Family Services. There, she said she saw even further that needs in the community went beyond food. “That’s what helped me think about, ‘What are the kids doing who don’t have soap, that don’t have shampoo, that can’t a ord tampons or pads? Where are they getting that assistance?’” Watkins said. Refresh Frisco o cially sent out its rst packages of hygiene products to students in November 2019. These quarterly distributions are typically sent out in August, November,
Refresh Frisco served 319 students, the number of students receiving hygiene products has quadrupled, o cials said. Refresh Frisco ended the 2021-22 school year having served 1,400 students, with 1,100 in Frisco and 300 in Little Elm, which began receiving Refresh services in 2021. This number is expected to grow, according to Susie Fogerson, a Refresh Frisco Advisory Council member. She said the number of students in need of help is 13% of FISD’s enrollment. “When you crunch that number, that’s 8,500 kids,” Fogerson said. While the nonpro t has not had to turn away any students, there are some problems with acquiring
Little Elm students joined Refresh in 2021
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Refresh Frisco 124 Rose Lane, Ste. 405, Entrance 2, Frisco https://refreshfrisco.org
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FRISCO EDITION • SEPTEMBER 2022
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