In a small storage room off the Tucker High School cafeteria, custodian Carolyn Collins is changing lives. 
 
 “The Giving Closet,” as it has been named, is stuffed with shampoos and school supplies, snacks and shoes. Noticing significant homelessness among students, Collins — who has worked for the school eight years — said she started collecting items as a way to give students needed supplies, clothes and toiletries they could not otherwise afford. 
 
 “I help them with … little things we take for granted,” she said at the school Wednesday. 
 
 She got the idea for the closet on Sept. 24, 2014, when someone began banging on a cafeteria door at the school around 6 a.m. She asked the students, a boy and a girl, what they were doing at school so early. The girl told Collins they were homeless and living in a car, with a parent and two other siblings. 
 
 She collected snacks to last them until lunchtime and began developing the plan to make items available for students. At first, it was snacks — granola bars, bottled water and Gatorade — but she expanded her reach upon hearing of other needs from students, teachers and counselors. 
 
 “I had heard about the closet before I got here,” said Principal Eric Parker, who began at the school in March. “It’s the genuine interest Mrs. Collins has for the well-being of the students. Hearing about it was one thing, but seeing the relationships she has with the students and the families and how she has touched them and been a blessing to them … 
 
 “The academic piece is our focus, but we can’t focus on that if some of the social emotional needs and other human needs of our students aren’t being met. I think that’s where Mrs. Collins has made the biggest difference.” 
 
 According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximately 37,791 of Georgia’s students, about 2.1 percent, had experienced periods of homelessness during the 2014-2015 school year. Housing instability hurts student achievement, contributing to high absenteeism and students failing courses and dropping out. DeKalb County School District officials have said they established bus stops for students living in shelters after experiencing homelessness, to allow continuity in their schooling experience. 
 
 The storage room, with cinder blocks painted a pale yellow, is about 15 feet wide and six feet deep. Shelves are stocked with deodorant, shaving cream, canned goods, wireless notebooks, binders, sanitizer, paper towels, Cup ‘O Noodles, feminine products, clothes and shoes. Several oversized black trash bags are filled with clothing from a recent donation. Collins, known as Mama Carolyn, Auntie Carolyn and other familial monikers given by the students, said some students will come by the closet and ask for supplies. Others will contact her discreetly and she will pass along the supplies through teachers and counselors. 
 
 Collins’ generosity recently caught the attention of Comedian and talk show host Steve Harvey, who highlighted her story on his television show and got sponsor Sam’s Club to give $5,000 for supplies. Harvey and his wife, Marjorie, chipped in another $10,000 for supplies. 
 
 “When you have a person like this woman here who reaches out and reaches back and reaches down to lift up, that’s really what the fiber of this country is about,” Harvey said to Collins on his show before telling her Sam’s Club was giving her $5,000 for a personal shopping spree. 
 
 Her giving doesn’t stop with students. Recently, she learned the family of one of her students was living in a vacant building. Collins bought blankets, pillows, clothes and food for them. 
 
 “I just wanted to make them feel comfortable where they were,” she said. 
 
 The mother kept in touch after the donation, even alerting Collins when they finally got an apartment. 
 
 “I told them if they still needed anything, just tell me,” she said. “I’ll try to get it for them.” 
 
 If you know someone like Carolyn Collins who deserves special recognition, you can nominate them by Sunday, Sept. 9, to receive an AJC Hometown Hero award here. ||||| Aug 15, 2018 Carolyn The Custodian Buys Food And Clothing For Her Homeless Students 
 
 Carolyn is much more than a custodian to her students, she is a caretaker. For all her hard work and compassion, Steve Harvey is helping her continue her mission. ||||| 
 
 Carolyn Collins in her giving closet, where she stores items she gives away to students in need. (Photo: David Roy) 
 
 High school custodian Carolyn Collins was about to take out the trash in the early morning darkness when she heard a loud knock on the cafeteria door. 
 
 She set down her garbage can and cracked the door. Two students — a boy and a girl — looked at her nervously. “Can we please come in?” asked the boy, even though school didn’t start for two more hours. “Me and my sister are getting tired of waiting outside.” 
 
 They said they’d been living in a car with their mother, who had dropped them off early so they could get ready for school in one of the restrooms. Collins felt her eyes fill with hot tears. The teens were hungry, so she hustled up some fruit, milk and cereal. 
 
 That was four years ago, the day she hatched a plan for a school “giving closet” — food, clothing, shoes, toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant and more — all free to any student at her school, Tucker High, about 25 miles from Atlanta. 
 
 “I knew that they weren’t the only kids at school who were struggling,” Collins, 54, told The Washington Post. “And I thought, ‘I’m going to do whatever I can to help these kids. High school is hard enough without being homeless.'” 
 
 Hours after she let in the homeless siblings, Collins stopped at several dollar stores after work on her six-mile drive home. She spent $200 on snacks, toiletries, socks, underwear, notebooks and pencils, and then stopped by the principal’s office the next morning to let administrators know she planned to help students in need and hoped they would provide her with some space. 
 
 Later that day, after she cleaned out an old storage room near the cafeteria, Collins’s giving closet was up and running. 
 
 [This teacher on a plane talked about her low-income students. Passengers overheard and gave her more than $500 in cash.] 
 
 Since 2014, any of the school’s 1,800 students who are in need of items such as food, soap, school supplies, book bags, clothes — even prom wear – will quietly mention it to Collins and she’ll open the closet. They can take what they need. 
 
 “She has such a giving heart, she’s a beacon of light for every kid in need,” said Eric Parker, 42, principal of Tucker High School. 
 
 The school has many students living in poverty, Parker said, with about 10 to 15 kids who are homeless at any given time. 
 
 “If a student needs something and it’s not in the closet, Ms. Collins will go out of her way to get it or find somebody else who can,” Parker said. “Her commitment to our kids is heartwarming. Whatever problem they might be having in their lives, they know they can trust her to listen and help.” 
 
 
 
 Carolyn Collins’s giving closet at Tucker High School in Tucker, Ga. (Carolyn Collins) 
 
 Between her duties of mopping, sweeping and polishing, Collins said she always makes time to stock the closet and reach out to students. She tries to help keep the kids afloat, she said, but there is also another, more painful reason. 
 
 Collins doesn’t like to talk about the terrible phone call that she and her husband received six years ago, one week before Thanksgiving. While visiting a friend, their grown son was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed during a home invasion robbery, she said. She misses him every single day. 
 
 “I want to give kids what they need so that nobody has to go out and steal from anyone,” said Collins, who has worked at the school for eight years. “I don’t want any other parent to have to go through what I did and lose a child at a young age for no reason.” 
 
 Collins estimates she has helped about 150 students through the giving closet, spending about a few hundred dollars each month. Many of the items are now donated by teachers, other students and people who live in the neighborhood. 
 
 “Gloves, shoes, belts, pants, sweatshirts, hairbrushes, whatever they need, I’ve got it,” she said. 
 
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 She is always on the lookout for teens who come to school each day wearing the same clothes, shuffling through the halls with their heads down — a sign that they might be homeless or experiencing other stress. Discreetly, she’ll invite them to take a peek in her closet. 
 
 “I never anticipated it would get this big, lots of good people want to help,” Collins said. “Not every kid who comes to the closet is homeless — some come from single homes and don’t have dads in their lives. It’s hard not to have a dad at home, especially when you’re a young boy. I just hug them and love them and let them know that I’m here for them.” 
 
 Former students describe what a huge impact she’s had on them. 
 
 “I love her with all my heart, she was my angel,” said Kennedy Carroll, 21, a Tucker High graduate who is now a sophomore at Savannah State University, majoring in performing arts. When he and his mom became homeless and had to move in with a relative that Carroll didn’t get along with, he lived by himself in his mother’s car for several months until a classmate’s family took him in. 
 
 “Ms. Collins took me aside a couple of times and made sure that I was doing okay and asked me what I needed,” said Carroll. “And I basically told her, ‘everything.’ I didn’t have clothes or good shoes or food, or even a toothbrush. She gave me all of that and more.” 
 
 Collins remembered she even gave him a stylish leather jacket when he needed a new coat, and she regularly filled his book bag with snacks when she sensed he wasn’t eating enough. 
 
 “I always knew that Ms. Collins cared,” said Carroll, who was on the track team and often showered at school. “And she gave me hope to keep going. I learned that if I could conquer being homeless, that I could conquer anything. Because of her generosity, I didn’t give up. I’ll remember how good she was to me for the rest of my life.” 
 
 Students such as Carroll who return a year or two later to say ‘thank you’ make the long days of cleaning floors, scrubbing toilets and emptying trash cans worthwhile, said Collins, who said she dreams of one day opening similar closets in other high schools. 
 
 “When I tell them, ‘I love you,’ and I see the smiles on their faces, that’s pure joy,” she said. “Everybody needs somebody. Seeing that they know they are loved, that’s my reward.” 
 
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– For four years now, Georgia high school custodian Carolyn Collins has been quietly making sure the students at her school have what they need. It started when, as she was getting ready to take out the trash, two students knocked on the cafeteria door and asked to wait inside. They were homeless, living in their mother's car, and had been dropped off at Tucker High, about 25 miles outside Atlanta, hours early to get ready for the day in one of the school's bathrooms. Moved by their plight, Collins, 54, made sure they got some breakfast—and then came up with her plan, the Washington Post reports. She bought $200 worth of food, toiletries, socks, underwear, and school supplies and asked school administrators to give her space to set up a "giving closet." She was soon running it out of a 15-foot by 6-foot storage room, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Now, Collins still spends a few hundred dollars a month on items to stock the closet, but teachers, students, and community members also donate supplies, including clothes, shoes, book bags, and more. She also got thousands to spend on the students during a segment on Steve Harvey's show last month. Many students at the school live in poverty, and Collins estimates she's opened up the closet for about 150 students over the years, letting them take what they need. "If a student needs something and it’s not in the closet, Ms. Collins will go out of her way to get it or find somebody else who can," says the school principal; she's even been known to help with prom wear. Collins, whose son was killed during a robbery six years ago, says she wants to make sure no student feels the need to turn to crime. She hopes to someday open more giving closets.