Meet one of our organization’s partners, Karen Pacelli, CEO and founder of Rethread Kids’ Charity, who has been donating to Assistance League of Inland North County for the past few years.
The charity started when Karen’s third daughter, Emma, and her younger brother, Mateo, got tired of seeing all of the lost and found school clothes sitting on the fence in elementary school.
They asked their principal what happened to the unclaimed K-6 clothes and were told that they usually get donated or thrown away in the trash. That’s where the idea sparked in 2016. Emma and Mateo would bring home six full bags of unclaimed clothing from their school. They washed and sorted them, and started giving them to teachers they knew in the Escondido school district who knew of families in need of jackets during the winter time.
In August, 2017, ReThread was turned into a 501(c)3 in hopes that the laundry facilities would donate their cleaning of 50-100 pieces of clothing, but none of them were interested. So, the children asked their church youth community to help out with the washing and sorting of the clothes and it’s been a great hit!
Now, according to Karen, Emma is graduating from Villanova University and going on to graduate school, and Mateo, who has been in charge of the operation for the past three years, is now heading off to Bowdoin College this August. So, it’s back to Karen handling the loads.
Rethread Kids’ Charity is in its fifth year. They work with three elementary schools and do big pickups 3x/year. Their operation has just gone international.
One thousand pieces of gently used, but clean clothing was recently shipped to the villagers in Fiji, shared along with medical supplies on a shipping container going overseas. Currently they are looking into how to help the refugees in Ukraine who are badly in need of clothing at the moment. If you are interested in reaching Karen, her contact information is: Karen Pacelli, ReThread Kids’ Charity, 858-945-8329, rethreadkidscharity@gmail.com.
We are fortunate to have community partners such as Karen Pacelli and ReThread Kids’ Charity. Counting our blessings.
