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Items donated to help students in need damaged by flooding at East High School

Posted at 10:08 PM, Jul 27, 2017
and last updated 2017-07-28 00:08:56-04

SALT LAKE CITY -- Flood water rushed through Salt Lake City earlier this week, damaging homes, businesses and schools.

East High School was hit especially hard, destroying hundreds of donated items that many students and their families count on.

Volunteers are now looking for help to restock before school starts.

The food pantry was the first room PTA Volunteer Lexie Dubell showed FOX 13 on Thursday afternoon. To get there, she had to walk through dark halls and step over dryers. She explained, if it got wet, it had to go.

“Any sort of wetness on a can had to be disposed of ‘cause it was contaminated," Dubell said.

Compared to the food pantry, the Leopard Boutique down the hall was in much more disarray. The boutique, a room similar to a thrift store but free to students, was directly under the gym, where Dubell said most of the water from the storm rushed in.

Some clothes may have survived the flood but will still face scrutiny; an inspector will decide if the clothes can be washed and saved. Otherwise, it all has to be thrown away, just like the hundreds of shoes originally donated by a community church.

The water pushed open many doors all over the school, destroying the new gym floor and the new washrooms. Dubell said the lockers in the washrooms were filled with towels and hygienic products, all of which were soaked. They had to be tossed.

Dubell said seeing a couple years of hard work ruined in the flood is disappointing, but what is more upsetting is knowing they lost things that really make a difference to the kids.

“In those places in the school that are so important to us… for these kids this stuff, this is what they depend on," Dubell said.

There is a way the public can help; Tuesdays and Thursdays the school is open for donations. Volunteers are looking for anything and everything: from socks and shoes to soap and shampoo. Some of the storage bins and shelving were also destroyed.

For more information on how you can help, click here.