HOUSTON -- Dobie High School takes its school pride seriously.
Inside the school's lobby sits a life-size sculpture of a longhorn, the school mascot. A wall of honor memorializes accomplished Dobie graduates. Banners hanging in the cafeteria, and trophies sitting in cases in the hallways hail the accomplishments of the school's athletic and academic teams.
"We call it Dobie Pride," said Erin Thompson, one of the school's counselors. "And it oozes out of this school."
Still, some of its students come to school lacking basic staples of a normal high school life, a point especially obvious to counselors like Thompson.
"The teachers really get to know the kids in their class all year, but we have time to sit down with them in a quiet space where they can kind of feel comfortable to tell their story," Thompson said. "A lot of times, we find that the parents are really struggling to make ends meet at home. So they're using their money to pay rent and to buy as much food and things as they can. However, it doesn't leave them a lot of money for extra things like school supplies."
That's why an article Thompson recently read on the Internet caught her eye. It described how a school in another state launched a food pantry for its needy students.
"I thought to myself, ‘Why didn't we think of this before?'" she said. "What a great idea!'"
So she traded Facebook messages with Erin Richardson, one of her fellow counselors, who immediately suggested they try the same idea at Dobie. Her social media page quickly filled with messages from people offering help and donations.
That happened on a Friday night. By Monday, the two counselors realized they needed to make their idea a reality. They decided to call it The Dobie Depot.
Richardson started filling out paperwork for a grant that would help cover the meager costs of Dobie's proposed pantry. She contacted her neighborhood's community newspaper, asking if The South Belt Ellington Leader would lend its support the project to help obtain some grant money.
That led the newspaper to publish a front-page article on the counselors' idea, which then triggered a response they never imagined.
"As a result, we have just been overwhelmed by how many people have contacted us wanting to donate items, wanting to write a check," Richardson said.
Indeed, before the Dobie Depot has even opened, it's inspiring educators at other schools to consider the same idea.
"Already other schools have contacted us saying, ‘How can we do this?'" Richardson said. "And if other schools can do this, too, and we help even more kids, that's ideal."
