According to co-president and junior Vikas Maturi, Design for CHS will hold a Street Store at the Metro Baptist Center on March 7 from 1 to 5 p.m. This event provides clothes for the homeless in a system more akin to that of a department store than a benefit project.

“Essentially, we call it a dignified shopping experience for the homeless,” Maturi said. “So, instead of the homeless having to go to random places and taking whatever clothes they can find, this provides an actual store experience. We set up racks and tables with all different kinds of clothes, and then we have (about) 30 volunteers there, and they’re all talking with the homeless and asking them what kind of clothes they would like, if they want to try stuff on.”

The club will be partnering with Wheeler Mission and the Metro Baptist Center to help this huge project come to fruition. While Design for CHS does many projects that aim to benefit the community, Maturi said this project is larger than the club normally takes on.

“We’ve never done something on this scale before, that’s this big. Normally our events are a little bit smaller, and we also focus on creating actual products,” Maturi said.

To prepare, Design for CHS has started clothing drives around the community and will also work with Key Club to sort the clothes and recruit volunteers. Maturi said students can donate clothes through Key Club or contact either of the two clubs to volunteer.

Sponsor Jan Mitchener said the students came up with this project and did the work to make it happen.

“In the club, they break up into groups and then they find the project that they feel passionate about, so it was a small group within the club that decided upon the project,” Mitchener said. “They got the backing of Creekside Middle School for the donations. The students in this club do all the legwork. They pick the project, they research the project, they make the connections, they do everything.”

Member and sophomore Vivian Guo and member and freshman Carly Chia were part of the group that organized the event. Chia said the group’s project manager was the one who introduced the idea.

“Our project manager, (sophomore) Grace (Zhang), found it on Pinterest, and she thought it would be a good thing for everyone to get involved in and help out our community,” Chia said.

Guo said when the club heard of the idea, they all thought it would be good to bring a branch of the project to Indianapolis.

“We heard of this idea; it (the Street Store) was founded by Max Pazak and Kayli Levitan,” Guo said. “They live in Cape Town and they saw a bunch of homeless people who were begging on the street (and decided to start this project), and we saw the idea and thought it would be a really great idea to bring into Indianapolis, where there are also a lot of people who need help.”