OASIS Network Expands To Add Fourth Site In Seffner Area

By Matt Wiley

Inside a Seffner school near the intersection of I-75 and I-4, a classroom is filled with gently used boys and girls clothing and school supplies. It’s not a supply room for teachers, but a gold mine of resources for school social workers, who make sure that students have what they need, even if they come from lower income families.

Thanks to the New Tampa-based non-profit organization known as the “Outreach Assisting Students In Schools” (or “OASIS”) Network, students in some of the most blighted parts of Hillsborough County now have access to clothes that they can be proud of wearing to school each day, as well as necessary school supplies. It all can add up very quickly for parents.

The Seffner location is the fourth site that OASIS has opened since it was founded in 2001 by longtime New Tampa residents Terry Wolford and Lynn Gruber, who realized that in this area, there were and are families with excess, and others not far away with a lot of need. Creating OASIS was their way of transferring excess goods that would typically be discarded to those in need, says OASIS executive director Ginger Bean, another New Tampa mom who has been running the OASIS program for many years.

In the Hillsborough County School District (HCSD), Bean says that 60-percent of students actually live in some form of poverty. In the Seffner area, that level is even higher, at 66 percent.

“For years, school social workers have asked us for an easily accessible site in the southeastern section of the county,” Bean explains. “The new site makes it much easier for social workers (in those areas) who are gathering clothing and supplies for their students in need.”

Each site’s exact location cannot be disclosed, so as to deter entire families from showing up, hoping to collect clothing. Instead, the sites are kept confidential so that the goods inside can be reserved for young students in need and dispersed accordingly by the social workers at each school.

Most of the OASIS sites are in school classrooms that HCSD has allowed the 501(c)(3) organization to use. Each room is set up like a regular store, Bean explains, with clothing separated into different sections for girls, boys, women and men. There also are sections for school supplies and hygiene products.

Since 2001, Bean says that OASIS has been able to help more than 7,000 students feel good about going to school by providing them with the clothes and supplies they need to feel like they fit in.

“In a way, we’re encouraging kids to keep going to school,” Bean says. “We’re able to improve the way the kids feel about themselves. Many times, they just won’t go because they feel like they don’t belong because they don’t have proper supplies or nice clothing.”

OASIS always is looking for more gently used clothing to supply for those less fortunate. Lately, Bean says, the sites have needed even more gently-used kids clothing than usual —  “typical things they’d wear to school,” like jeans, shorts and short-sleeved shirts, even hooded sweatshirts.”

“We get a lot of adult-sized clothing, but youth sizes are harder to come by,” she adds. “Many times, kids just wear their clothes out to the point that they can’t be donated, or the clothing is sold to consignment shops.”

If you have anything you’d like to donate to OASIS, you can do so at the New Tampa Family YMCA, located on Compton Dr. in Tampa Palms.

For more information about the OASIS Network, or to find out more about donating, please visit Oasis-Network.org.