'I didn't realize how great the need was': Houston nonprofit works to ensure youths have underwear to help them succeed

Undies for Everyone, a Houston-based nonprofit, was founded by Rabbi Amy Weiss in 2012. 

The organization provides underwear to youths in need, through schools, Child Protective Services, Texas Children's pediatric mobile units and student support services. The organization distributes underwear in Houston, Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, among others.

Weiss was blogging for the Houston Chronicle in 2008 when a social worker brought up an issue for children. The social worker noted that toy drives around Christmas are great, but the kids didn’t have underwear and socks – and Weiss wrote about it.

After that column, things started picking up. People started sending money for underwear, dropped off new underwear at her husband’s office, and every year after that, a small group did a small drive around back to school time. In 2012, she created the nonprofit.

“I didn’t think the underwear for Christmas thing was very fun. It seemed like back to school was a better choice,” Weiss said about the back-to-school drive. “I didn’t realize how great the need was. I didn’t realize even then that no one else in the country was doing it.”

Undies for Everyone puts donated underwear into packs of seven and distributes these basics to kids who need them. The organization does purchase underwear, but they also accept donations from companies, religious organizations and other groups that conduct underwear drives. Since the pandemic, they have directed people to the Amazon wish list, where people can purchase underwear that is sent directly to the organization. Volunteers for the organization pack these for distribution.

The program serves kids ages three to 14, who are in crisis, whether they’ve been removed from their homes by Child Protective Services, are enrolled in their school’s homeless program, or living in deep poverty or under the poverty line.

"It’s about the kids getting the underwear, but their families – are in financial crisis, especially now with unemployment the way it is. People are talking about housing and food insecurity and evictions with COVID, which are important, but these parents can’t provide basic needs for their kids,” Weiss said. “Not only are we helping the kids, but we’re also taking a burden off of parents who worry about not being able to give the kids what they really need, because we know that a lot of children are too embarrassed to go to school when they don’t have the right clothing – including underwear."

Since the nonprofit organization was founded in 2012, the organization has distributed over 2 million pairs of underwear to children in need, and over 2.3 million pairs of underwear to victims of disasters.

“We give underwear because we want to increase their chances of success into young adulthood,” Weiss said. “We want them to go to school feeling confident enough to go to school and graduate.”