Moms Who Care founder Barb McDonald, right, and volunteer Jan Sheldon, encourage an East Peoria Community High School student to pick up a few snacks before heading back to class. (Photo by Holly Eltenmiller / for Chronicle Media)

There’s a room at East Peoria Community High School full of clothes and shoes and snacks, where caring ladies hand out cookies and hugs and everything is free.

Though it may sound like fiction, this room is real, along with a growing number of others like it, thanks to Barb McDonald and her vision to help teens with needs.

In 2009, McDonald launched a grassroots effort to provide students with hygiene bags stocked with personal products, a venture which became known as the Moms Who Care organization.

“I called several of my girlfriends and said, ‘Let’s do something here to help these kids,’” McDonald recalled, “so we put together 10 bags for girls and 10 for boys, and gave that many away about three times a year.”

The next year, volunteers assembled 90 additional bags, which were handed out at Christmas time in gift baskets provided by The Garage, a local church youth group. That’s when the special requests started trickling in from school administrators.

“The school would call and say, ‘Hey, this kid needs a coat, or this kid needs band shoes,’ and we’d make that happen,” she said.

More calls came. More coats and shoes and dresses were handed out. The need was apparent, and McDonald saw fit to open up shop at the high school.

Superintendent Dr. Chuck Nagel and school nurse Elisabeth Barkley appealed to the school board, and in spring of 2011, Moms Who Care were granted permanent use of an office space at the school.

“We opened our first room in the Industrial Wing, and we were there for two years,” McDonald. “Then, in 2014, they moved us next door into a classroom-sized room and we continued to use the other room for overflow.”

Each Thursday at 8 a.m., the door to the Moms Who Care shop opens and students wander casually in, some for shoes or clothes, others for snacks and some simply wish to talk to the volunteers and leave with hugs. There are no conditions; every student is welcome.

“If you think about a teenager, we have whatever a teens would like,” McDonald said. “Everybody has a different value system as far as clothes, so we make sure that our clothing is trendy. We love to get trendy clothes that teens like.”

Hygiene products still top the list of student needs — shampoo, body wash, deodorant and sundry other items. Snacks rank just below personal products, so once a month, Moms Who Care volunteers visit Midwest Food Bank of Peoria to keep the shelves stocked with food.

“What a difference these things can make in a child’s life, even a kind word and a hug,” McDonald said. “We tell them it’s okay, we’re having hard times right now. If they need shoes for band, we’ll get them. We’ve bought prom dresses, lots of PE shoes. We just bought work clothes for a girl who was hired at Walmart. A lot of kids need food service shoes, too, and they can be expensive.”

Currently, Moms Who Care has expanded to other communities. Deer Creek-Mackinaw High School followed suit first, Limestone High School in Bartonville was next and now Broadmoor and Edison junior high schools in Pekin, Beverly Manor School in Washington and East Peoria’s Central Junior High School now host a Moms Who Care group.

McDonald said the process of becoming a 401 C non-profit organization is nearing completion. Until then, money will continue to be held in an activities fund at EPCHS, and every dollar is spent on the students.

“Everybody in the community makes this happen,” she said. “The best thing about it to me is, we’re a community taking care of the future of our community, to help people to have a better life.”

— Group mothers all students at East Peoria High School —