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
Name of your organization: The Sharing Shelf
Your role: Executive Director and founder
MyRye.com: Tell us your organization’s mission
Blatt: The Sharing Shelf combats clothing insecurity by providing children and teens in need with clothing and basic essentials, empowering them to learn, grow and reach their full potential.
How long have you operated in or around Rye?
Blatt: The Sharing Shelf started operations 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 is the organization best known for?
Blatt: The Sharing Shelf achieves its mission using an umbrella of programs:
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- Clothing Bank. Trained volunteers create Wardrobe Packs containing a week’s worth of seasonally appropriate clothing each packed for an identified infant, child, or teen. Each child also receives a hygiene kit filled with age appropriate toiletries and period products where needed. In 2025, demand for this program is up 30% and we anticipate serving close to 8,000 infants, children and teens.
- Teen Boutique. A free store for teens located adjacent to our Clothing Bank. Teen Boutique has the look and feel of a real boutique with dressing rooms, racks and displays of new and excellent condition used clothing, shoes, hygiene products and accessories. Trained volunteers and staff support teens as they shop to create an empowering and safe environment where they can select clothing and express themselves through those choices. In 2025, more than 1,000 teens have shopped in Teen Boutique with more dates on the calendar.
- 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.
- Westchester County Diaper Bank distributes diapers each month to infants and toddlers, birth through 36 months, through community nonprofits and the Westchester County Department of Social Services. We provide customized packages based on the age, size and developmental stage of each child, ensuring that each receives the essentials they need as they grow and reducing economic stress on low-income families.
Looking forward to 2026, what will be your top initiatives?
Blatt:
- In 2026, The Sharing Shelf looks to build up the Diaper Bank program. This initiative was initially founded by the Junior League of Central Westchester and we’ve partnered together to run it for the last few years. They have asked The Sharing Shelf to take over complete operation, financially and administratively. Demand for diapers has grown recently as more and more low income families are struggling to meet basic needs due to inflation and the recent government shutdown.
- Rising to meet the growing demand on our services: Demand for The Sharing Shelf is up four-fold in the last 5 years. While we use an eco-friendly approach, we increasingly need to purchase new clothing and hygiene to complement donations of used clothing. In 2026, we hope to identify more in-kind donors and a wholesaler for hygiene products (any reader who can help us?).
- Further expanding our Teen Boutique: Our Teen Boutique program benefited in 2025 from a generous re-do by Made by Gather and Beautiful by Drew. This donation created a learning resource room inside the Boutique. In 2026, we will introduce an educational program to teach teens about workplace attire and the importance of selecting appropriate styles for different parts of their lives while also emphasizing the importance of personal hygiene. This will complement our core Teen Boutique program to provide teens with an empowering shopping experience.
Tell us about the population you serve and how they can get involved with your programming and services.
Blatt: The Sharing Shelf supports low income children from birth through age 19 in Westchester County. Our program touches at least one child in almost every community across the county, from the wealthiest suburbs where we may see a handful of requests each year to communities like Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Port Chester and Peekskill that have higher concentrations of poverty.
We reach these children through nonprofits, schools and government agencies. For our Clothing Bank, 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, packed with seasonally appropriate clothes. In Teen Boutique, we schedule a shopping appointment. For Backpacks to School, we provide a backpack filled with grade appropriate supplies. With the Diaper Bank, our partners can place a request each month per child.
Are you a 501(c)(3) non-profit with tax exempt status?
Blatt: Yes.
Looking back across 2025, what were your organization’s top achievements?
Blatt: We shepherded the successful design and build of our Learning Resource Room thanks to a generous donation from Made by Gather and Beautiful by Drew. We completed our strategic plan and redesign of our organizational design, adding two much needed programmatic staff positions. We rose to the challenge of continued increased demand and successfully reached more children, tapped more volunteers and engaged more clothing donors.
How can local residents support your organization?
Blatt: Financial support gives us the flexibility to purchase the items we need and ensure we have what we need at the moment we need it and allows us to ensure we have items like hygiene and things that must be new such as socks and underwear.
We welcome and rely on volunteers to achieve our mission! Volunteers can join us inside The Sharing Shelf to sort donations and create Wardrobe Packs. We have equally important volunteers who help in the community by organizing collection drives, filling hygiene kits and getting their house of worship or business 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, Karen Beatty and Brad Dickerson. Jen Morris heads up our Community Board and co-chaired our recent luncheon committee.
Other dedicated volunteers include Heidi Fortin, Adrienne Mecca, Dana Perriello, the Ebeling family, the Hanlon family, Clare Beacham, Kate Bluvol, Judy & David Jackson family and more! Our staff includes two Rye residents – Caroline Houghton and Emily Jackson.
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 I am now in my 17th year of leadership.
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: Driven.
Where did you grow up?
Blatt: I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio in a small suburb called Wyoming.
What principles guide you when you have to make a difficult decision?
Blatt: When facing a new challenge, do not say that it cannot be solved. I like to say – how do I solve it, even if it’s an imperfect solution. Accept that you may make imperfect decisions but take away the positive from the negative situation to learn from it.
Can you share a time when failure taught you more than success ever could?
Blatt: I think about one of my children whose coach did not name her captain even though she was the only senior starter on the team. She had a choice – quit or make the most of it and “prove him wrong.” Her senior year, she arrived at practice early, trained harder and became the de facto leader on the team and a role model for the younger students. That failure was the best success story in her life and one that her siblings could learn from and emulate.
What excites you most about the future—for yourself or for the world?
Blatt: Right now, it’s really difficult to be positive and excited about the world given the challenges facing so many people. I look to the past, when there have been dark periods, and see that these dark periods are followed by positive progress. I cling to that hope that history repeats this pattern.
Where do you live and how many years have you lived there?
Blatt: I moved to Westchester 29 years ago and raised my children in New Rochelle.
Thanks Deborah!
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