VHS Gator Career Closet will assist students ready for college and career interviews

Vicksburg High School is putting together the Gator Career Closet to assist students in need of appropriate clothing for college and career interviews and opportunities.

TJ Mayfield, career academy coach and archery coach at VHS, is the organizer of the Career Closet.

“We’re looking to get donations from the community for professional dress clothes,” he said. The clothes will be used “for job interviews, for college or any other professional events.”

Among the items needed — for both men and women — are:

• Men’s/women’s business suits
• Professional dresses
• Blazers
• Button-up business professional shirts
• Professional slacks/skirts
• Professional ties
• Belts
• Blouses
• Shoes
• Legal pads/ink pens

The pads and pens will be used for mock business and college interviews so that students are fully prepared.

This is a new offering for VHS this year, and the closet is beginning at zero.

“We’ll take all sizes,” Mayfield said. “We’re starting from scratch.”

Mayfield encourages residents to look through their closets at home and see if there aren’t items that may be the wrong size or no longer needed but still appropriate for the Gator Career Closet.

“Donate it to a young person who really needs it,” he said.

“With a campus of over 800 students, we will be very limited in the number of students that we are able to help,” Mayfield wrote in a flyer  promoting the closet. “Where we understand we will not be able to help every student and not every student is in need, we would like to be able to offer a nice selection for those who do. To do that, we need to maintain size variety and style, as every student is not the same.”

If you have items to donate, you can drop them off or mail them to:

Vicksburg High School
3701 Drummond Street
Vicksburg, MS 39180

If you have questions or need additional information, email Mayfield at Thomas.mayfield@vwsd.org or call him at 601-529-1831.