You can help us provide everyday essentials to local children in need. Learn more about how you can help.
A statement from Cradles to Crayons: A Lifelong Commitment to DEI
Gear Up for Winter
Gear Up for Winter is Cradles to Crayons’ flagship winter initiative, which provides warm coats and other essentials to families who need them most before harsh weather conditions become an emergency.
Learn more about Gear Up for Winter and see how you can help keep children warm in Massachusetts, Chicagoland, and Greater Philadelphia.
Donate Goods
Check your closets and drawers at home for new and like-new clothing, shoes, books, and toys that have been outgrown or replaced. Donate them to us and you can be sure they’ll be given to local children in need to support their health and development!
Volunteer
We work with tens of thousands of families, individuals, community groups, and corporate volunteers in our Giving Factories® and at community-based events to provide more than 500,000 packages of essential items to children every year. Join us to help in your community!
Learn How You Can Help
Fund the Cause
Help end Clothing Insecurity! Financial support from individuals, families, and companies sustains our work year round. Just $33 serves one child head to toe.
Giving Factory Direct
Straight from your home to a child in need—our innovative new platform makes it easy to pack and ship the clothing you have to donate directly to a child with those needs! Sign up to expand our reach to even more kids across the United States.
We fill a critical yet overlooked need.
More than 20 million children in the United States do not have the clothing and basic essentials they need for healthy childhood development. Families struggling to pay for rent and groceries often cannot afford anything else. Basic items for their children—properly fitting outfits for school, diapers, a backpack, shoes, pajamas, a coat for cold weather—are simply not possible. Cradles to Crayons’ mission and model enable our volunteers and donors to turn compassion into action and provide the essential items that children in struggling families need to thrive at school, to participate more fully in life, to just be a kid.
We’re Making a Tangible Difference
We’re Making a Difference in Children’s Lives.
Cradles to Crayons was founded on the philosophy that unused resources should be redistributed to the places they are needed most. With Quality = Dignity as a cornerstone value, Cradles to Crayons invites you to look in closets, drawers, and shelves at home for new and like-new clothing, shoes, books, and toys that have been outgrown or replaced by a new favorite. By donating them to us, you can help to change the lives of children in need—across the country, and right here at home. Read more about our impact >