BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

You jolt awake to your second alarm of the morning in a slight panic.

There’s a pair of dress pants piled up on the left foot of your dresser, your laptop wasn’t plugged in last night, and worst of all, you can’t find your shirt.

Your professor’s ex-student’s boss wants to give you a job interview today at 11:05 a.m., and “if one is given a shot, take the shot you must,” I don’t know, Yoda probably?

You could wear the shirt from yesterday, but there are bright red and fluorescent yellow stains around the collar for some reason. Must’ve been a wild Wednesday.

With an hour to find a shirt, you’ve got to do something. You head out of your dorm to use the showers, and a poster hanging on the wall picks you up by your bootstraps and screams, “School of Arts and Sciences Care Closet.”

The Care Closet at Buffalo State University is a resource where students and staff can browse and select professional attire free of charge. Housed in room 222 of Rockwell Hall, the Buffalo State community can walk in with no questions asked and no uncomfortable conversations.

The Care Closet is led by Dr. Atta Ceesay, the associate dean for academic standards and student success here on campus. She has worked with countless students, and The Care Closet is a culmination of all the concerns voiced by students throughout the years.

“There have been several students that I have personally helped on my own,” Dr. Ceesay said. “Eventually, I said no, no more of this one-on-one help. I want to remove barriers.”

We are all human, and we all have some sense of pride. There is not always an easy way to reach out for help, even when there are so many people around you willing to do so.

At The Care Closet, you’ll find two large clothing racks, a closet, and an entire table with shoes and tons of hygiene products. Suit jackets, dresses, toothpaste, and fresh pairs of slacks: think thrift shop, but strictly for looking dapper.

From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, The Care Closet is open and ready to serve you, no matter the circumstance. You can do all the preparation in the world for an interview, but how you present yourself is just as important.

“When you guys go out on internships, whatever it is, you are representing Buff State,” Dr. Ceesay said. “Some students struggle with the right attire or the ability to buy the right attire.”

Dr. Ceesay set the record straight, saying, “I wanted equity.” The Care Closet gives everyone a fair shot at looking the part after all of the preparation for your big moment has already been done. The classic phrase “look good, feel good” is entirely true, as a nice outfit can exhibit confidence that one may not have known they had bottled up inside of themselves.

“What you wear says a lot about who you might be as a person because they don’t know you,” Dr. Ceesay said. “How we dress to go to the club and how we need to dress for the interview are totally different.”

Resources like The Care Closet are extremely valuable, and for many people, their first question is, how can I help? While donations aren’t expected from students AT ALL, Dr. Ceesay and the crew in the Dean’s office won’t turn anyone down. Dr. Ceesay admits to being slightly taken aback by students wanting to donate.

“I’m still processing that,” she said. “This wasn’t meant for a burden on any student; it’s meant to remove the burden off of you guys.”

The majority of the racks of clothing, piles of shoes, and boxes of hygiene products that currently live in The Care Closet have been collected by faculty at Buffalo State. Professors have a lot of stuff, especially if they’ve been teaching for more than a decade.

“When I’m bringing in [clothes], I’m cleaning my husband’s closet.” Dr. Ceesay said. “We, amongst ourselves, are using word-of-mouth to get our friends and family to donate.”

Now, back to our scenario from the beginning. It’s 9:47 a.m., you have just over an hour until your interview, but still no shirt. You now know about The Care Closet from the poster, but are admittedly embarrassed to stop by and ask for help.

Now it’s 10:02 a.m., back in your dorm, still no shirt. Your roommate, who is brutally honest in all the best ways, commands you to go to Rockwell Hall and “pick out a shirt, gosh darn it!”

After walking over, a smiling face greets you, and you let out a sigh of relief.

They have a shirt; in fact, they have multiple shirts. You try to hide your glee after finding a shirt in your favorite color, blue.

After finding the right size, you cave into a hug with Dr. Ceesay and thank her before heading off to the biggest moment of your life with a mini bottle of mouthwash in your pocket, too!

“This is their dean’s office. We are here to serve them. They can come in no questions asked,” Dr. Ceesay said. “They don’t have to sign a paper, they don’t even have to tell me who they are.”

Thank you for reading. I encourage everyone to PLEASE use The Care Closet and support this amazing resource that we have on campus. Click THIS LINK for a YouTube video where I take a mini-tour and look around The Care Closet.