Giving Rye: Meet The Sharing Shelf
Giving Rye is a feature series highlighting non-profits and community groups in and around the City of Rye. Today meet Deborah Blatt of The Sharing Shelf.
Your Name: Deborah Blatt
Organization: The Sharing Shelf
Your role: Founder and Executive Director
MyRye.com: Tell us your organization’s mission.
Blatt: The Sharing Shelf addresses clothing insecurity and meets the basic material needs of children and teens in Westchester County, bringing dignity and respect, so they can thrive. We are committed to the whole child, from birth through age 19, and provide each child we serve with a week’s worth of seasonally appropriate clothing as well as essentials including diapers for infants and toddlers, toiletry kits, period products, new socks, new underwear, and school supplies.
How long have you operated in Rye?
Blatt: We originally started in a basement in Rye in 2009, in the building that now houses Westchester Magazine. We were there until the end of 2010 then moved for a year to New Rochelle before settling in our Port Chester warehouse in late 2011.
What programming or work in Rye is the organization best known for?
Blatt:
- The Sharing Shelf is best known as Westchester’s Clothing Bank for Children. We accept donations of new and gently used clothing and tap volunteers in the local community to help sort donations and prepare them for children in need. Demand for our program grew three-fold from 2020 to 2023, and increased another 11% in 2024.
- The Sharing Shelf created a program called Teen Boutique, a free store that has the look and feel of a real store. Teens facing clothing insecurity are invited to shop for a seasonal wardrobe. In addition to our on-site boutique, we operate Teen Boutique Pop-Ups, a series of events held periodically during the year at local schools and community organizations. In 2024, to date, 779 teens have benefitted from this opportunity.
- Each summer, The Sharing Shelf launches its Backpacks to School program to support children from pre-kindergarten through high school. Every student receives a new backpack filled with grade-appropriate school supplies, giving them the tools they need to succeed and thrive in the classroom. This impactful program relies on the generosity of local financial donations to purchase supplies for children from low-income families. In August, families, companies, and individuals come together to pack and distribute backpacks to partnering schools and organizations. In 2024, TSS provided 1,946 backpacks to children in 40 school districts.
Looking forward to 2025, what will be your top initiatives?
Blatt:
- In 2025, we seek to stay true to our mission and ensure that we can respond to clothing insecurity in a timely manner in a manner that respects the dignity of the children we serve and allows them to thrive.
- In our Clothing Bank, we are working proactively to anticipate our inventory needs and ensure that we have the sizes and items on hand when we need them to best help those who rely on us.
- In addition to providing essential clothing and hygiene items in Teen Boutique, we want to introduce an educational component to better support the teens we serve. This initiative will help teens understand the importance of selecting appropriate styles for different parts of their lives while also emphasizing the importance of personal hygiene.
Tell us about the population you serve and how they can get involved with your programming and services.
Blatt:
- We support nonprofit organizations, schools and community groups and serve children from birth through age 19 in Westchester County. These partners place requests on behalf of the children they serve, providing us with the name, age, size of the children and we provide a Wardrobe Pack with seasonally appropriate clothing customized to their sizing needs.
- In Teen Boutique, our partners either schedule group events or individual appointments for teens they serve. The majority of our events are now held in our free store, located adjacent to our Clothing Bank.
Are you a 501(c)(3) non-profit with tax exempt status?
Blatt: Yes
Looking back across 2024, what were your organization’s top achievements?
Blatt:
- We rose to the challenge of increased demand and successfully enhanced our services. In 2023, we experienced a significant surge in demand and often struggled to maintain the necessary inventory. Despite further growth in 2024, we have improved our processes and are now responding more efficiently and effectively to meet the needs of those we serve.
- We formally opened the doors of our Teen Boutique free store in May 2024. We received a transformational grant from Impact100 Westchester in June 2023 which allowed us to create a beautiful, warm welcoming space for teens.
How can local residents support your organization?
Blatt: The Sharing Shelf, the growing demand for clothing has highlighted a critical need in our community, and we use a multi-faceted approach to meet it. First, clothing donations in all sizes are essential—these help us provide for children, teens, and families who rely on us. We want to be your go-to destination with your clothing donations.
We also need financial support to ensure our inventory is complete. Financial contributions allow us to purchase clothing in sizes we may not have enough of, as well as cover items such as hygiene and things that must be new like socks and underwear.
Additionally, volunteers play a key role in our mission. From individuals to corporate groups, their efforts are critical to making an impact. We’ve developed a menu of volunteer opportunities to make it easy for anyone to get involved.
These efforts work together to ensure we meet the rising demand while maintaining the dignity of those we serve. By supporting us through donations, funding, or volunteering, the community can help ensure no one goes without the essentials they need
What local Rye residents and area businesses have been the longest, steadiest supporters of your organization?
Blatt: We count Maria Guarnieri as our longest serving volunteer. She is a regular presence at The Sharing Shelf and has brought many of her friends and neighbors into our fold. Our Board includes Rye residents Staci Ramachandran and Brad Dickerson. Karen Beatty will soon rejoin as our Treasurer. Jen Morris heads up our Community Board and chaired our recent luncheon committee. Other dedicated volunteers include Heidi Fortin, Adrienne Mecca, Dana Perriello, the Ebeling family, with some newer faces including the Hanlon family, Clare Beacham and more! We are proud to stay that Rye clothing donors far outpace every other community in Westchester
Tell us about you:
How long have you been in your current role?
Blatt: I founded The Sharing Shelf in 2009 and have proudly led it for over 15 years.
Is the role full time or part time? Paid or volunteer?
Blatt: I am now paid and full time but started it as a volunteer and ran it as a volunteer for many years.
How would your friends and family describe you in one word?
Blatt: Passionate
Where did you grow up?
Blatt: I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio in a small suburb called Wyoming.
What is your favorite unimportant thing about you?
Blatt: I foster kittens & cats, something I started with my daughter during Covid. We adopted an adorable little tabby from a rescue organization in the Bronx. I felt that we had the capacity to help, and they had the need for foster homes. We’ve foster 20 so far, three of them are still with us and one of those has moved in permanently.
If the next five years is a chapter in your life, what is this chapter about?
Blatt: I want to see The Sharing Shelf successfully transition into the hands of a new Executive Director. I deeply love what I have founded and believe wholeheartedly in its mission. While I am very happy where I am now, I recognize this moment as an opportunity for the organization to reach new heights.
What would you do if you were not afraid?
Blatt: Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. I had a bad experience with altitude sickness years ago and, ever since, have avoided going that high for that long of a trek.
Where do you live in Rye and how many years have you lived in the City?
Blatt: I moved to Westchester 28 years ago and raised my children in New Rochelle.
Thanks Deborah!
Learn more:
Deborah Blatt Bio:
Deborah Blatt is an attorney with a background in international human rights and women’s rights. The idea behind The Sharing Shelf grew from her experience as a parent with children in a mixed-income public school where the school social worker balanced addressing the academic, social and emotional needs of her students while collecting clothing, coats and shoes. Deborah envisioned a place where the community could come together to collect and organize clothing donations and provide a one-stop shop for schools, hospitals and nonprofits whose students and clients faced clothing insecurity.
She founded The Sharing Shelf in 2009 and has shepherded its growth from a basement in Rye through its expansion to a 8,100 square foot warehouse in Port Chester, serving more than 135 nonprofits and schools county-wide and engaging hundreds of volunteers each year. Since its inception, The Sharing Shelf has been addressing clothing insecurity and meeting the basic needs of infants, children and teens county-wide by providing Wardrobe Packs (a week’s worth of clothing) and essentials like toiletries, period products, diapers, and school supplies.
