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November 2023

Clothes To Kids of Denver Welcomes

New Executive Director

Clothes To Kids of Denver (CTKD) has announced the appointment of Kathleen Phillips (pictured below) as its new executive director. Phillips has served in a variety of benefits and human resources roles, most recently as vice president of human resources for Centennial Resource Development and senior vice president of people and integration for Permian Resources Corporation. She has always enjoyed helping employees grow and develop in their careers, as well as working with leadership to create an inspiring company culture where employees enjoyed coming to work and contributing their best efforts. Her skillset will certainly serve her well at CTKD!

“It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome Kathleen to our team,” said Mary Valenti, chair of CTKD’s board of directors. “Her exceptional background in leadership, strategic planning and human resources, along with her passion for our mission, make her the ideal person to lead our organization into the future. Under Kathleen’s leadership, we expect our entire team to continue to build on our past success with an unwavering focus on serving more kids in the Denver metro area.”


Phillips first learned about CTKD when her son's school held a coat drive in 2020. Knowing the mission would resonate with her colleagues, Phillips connected her workplace with CTKD for a holiday giving campaign. Over the years, their team held several more coat, shoe and clothing drives, and even combined the drives with fitness challenges.


Phillips has also been volunteering at CTKD as a shopping assistant since December 2020 and loves all of the aspects of the role including stocking and tidying the store, making the blue bags for socks and undies and, most importantly, helping kids find clothing items they love.


Phillips follows Valerie Lunka as executive director. During her four years in that position, Lunka was instrumental in the organization’s continued growth and renewed focus on elevating the shopping experience for our families. Highlights of her time with CTKD include successfully steering the organization during the COVID-19 pandemic, establishing the curbside service program, overseeing significant upgrades to the store (many of which were donated), the addition of three staff members and significant increases in the organization’s operating budget. Lunka will remain with the organization, continuing to lead fundraising efforts and event planning as CTKD’s development director, the position she held from 2014 to 2019. 


“Clothes To Kids is grateful for Val’s long tenure with the organization and her leadership as executive director, and she deserves much of the credit for the organization’s year-over-year growth in the number of kids we’ve served,” Valenti said. “We are fortunate to have Val remain with CTKD as development director, maintaining continuity in our donor relationships and community connections.”

Welcome, Kathleen! Everyone at Clothes To Kids is so excited that you are part of our team.

CO Gives Day Giving Starts Now!

Please take a moment right now to make your Colorado Gives Day gift. Any donation made today through midnight on December 5 increases our share of the $1,000,000 Colorado Gives Day Incentive Fund. The more you donate, the more we will receive from this special “bonus” fund! Plus, all donations made between November 1 - December 5 qualify CTKD for prizes and incentives.

We Need Your Donations!


Now that it's finally starting to feel like fall, your donations are more important than ever! We have been serving more than 1,000 students per month and need your help to restock. We have extended our drop-off hours and now accept clothing and shoe donations Tuesday - Saturday between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm.

Items should be clean, appealing to young people (ages 3-21) and ready-to-wear. Check our updated Clothing & Shoe Donation page for a complete list of what we need.

Sharing the Love


We were the lucky recipient of High 5 Plumbing's High 5 Cares program during the months of July and August. The team at High 5 has partnered with us in many ways over the years. Thank you for raising awareness and funds in support of our mission! 


Meet Judy Buzbee! This awesome volunteer is an expert bargain hunter. She recently had so many amazing finds that she enlisted her family to help deliver everything to the shop. We are so lucky to have her on our team.


This happy Dad asked his college-age daughters to clean out their closets before they left for school...and they actually did it! We appreciate this family's generosity, and we know they appreciate regaining some closet space.


A huge thank you to our wonderful friend Charlene Andrew for her 7th annual donation of crocheted hats. We counted 150 this year...one of her largest donations ever! Charlene spends an entire year making these hats to donate for our fall and winter shoppers, who are always excited to have something so beautiful and thoughtfully handmade.


Russell Leech (third from right with some of his troop members and supporters) held an Undie 500 for his Eagle Scout project. He collected more than 500 pairs of new socks and 450 pairs of new underwear. Great job, Russell!


Many thanks to this generous group from Prophetic Praise and Glory Ministries who brought in donations from their annual worship conference. This is their ninth year in a row collecting clothing at their conference! We can’t thank them enough for their continued support.


This wonderful group from Fidelity Investments came in to volunteer. We've been so busy that we asked them to help out in just about every part of the store. They joyfully agreed and were so much fun to work with!


We recently hosted two awesome volunteer groups from CNA Insurance. They provided a full day of service and helped us out in so many ways. Thank you for the many ways you support our mission and the kids we serve!


We had a fun and hardworking volunteer group from Denver Christian School come and help out on a super busy shopping day. They were ready, willing and able to take on anything and everything at a moment’s notice. We really appreciated having their helping hands that day.

ABOUT CLOTHES TO KIDS OF DENVER

Clothes To Kids of Denver provides new and quality used clothing in a boutique setting to students from low-income or in-crisis families in the Denver Metro area.

Since 2008 Clothes To Kids has provided more than 100,000 school wardrobes to students in need, completely free of charge. Please join us in celebrating our accomplishments and help ensure our continued success in the future. Visit us online at www.clothestokidsdenver.org or call 720-379-4630.


Take a look inside our boutique, and see how Clothes To Kids changes the lives of students in our community:

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