If you ask Louise Yariv how long she and her husband have been donating items to families in need, she’ll chuckle and won’t give you a straight answer.
“Sometimes we say 15 years, sometimes we say 20,” she said.
Yariv, a 64-year-old English for Speakers of Other Languages teacher at Gainesville High School originally from New York, was given a couch by a family moving to Brazil after they decided not to bring it with them. Yariv gave that couch away. She didn’t know it at the time, but that couch would be the first of many donations she would end up making. That first donation would eventually spark the idea for what is now known as the ESOL Closet.
Yariv has been a teacher for the last 37 years. After attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an undergraduate student and earning her master’s degree in ESOL in Boston, she taught Spanish for three years in America’s Walking City. She also met her husband, Yossie Yariv, through relatives in New York and moved to his birthplace, Israel, where she taught ESOL for nine years. She taught special education in Ocala and at Westwood Middle School in Gainesville. For the last 23 years, Louise has been a teacher at Gainesville High School, and she said they have been the best years of her life.
“This is my dream job,” she said. “This is the job that I wanted.”
Louise keeps busy at the high school, from running the ESOL Closet to teaching five classes to being the co-sponsor of the International Club. Her classroom, 23-011, is filled with couches rather than desks, and her room is usually filled with students — even during her lunch break.
“Students are nervous enough to be speaking English in front of people, so I wanted to make it a more comfortable setting,” Louise said. “I love that in my class, I build a feeling of community. It’s really important to me, so that they feel like they’re all in this together.”
Although Louise has been teaching for decades, it was after that casual couch donation that she realized along with being a teacher, helping those in need was what she wanted to do. Running the closet for as long as Louise has is no easy feat, and she credits the support of her husband, the community and the school for her being able to help so many people.
“We see ourselves as the middleman. If we didn’t have people who were generous to donate, to take the time to call me, to write me, set up when we can come in and get things, if we didn’t have those people, we’d never be able to do it,” she said.
The ESOL Closet is a two-person team, according to Louise. She said that without her husband, she wouldn’t be able to help as many families, and he agrees.
“She finds the students,” Yossie said. “I’m the driver and muscle behind it. I’m sure Louise wouldn’t carry a couch to the third floor of the building.”
To advertise the closet to families in Gainesville, a letter is sent to anyone with the school board of Alachua County email address three times a year. However, the ESOL Closet’s popularity didn’t skyrocket until a couple of months ago, around the end of the Spring 2014 semester at UF. Someone posted an advertisement for the ESOL Closet on a Facebook group page, “Free & For Sale,” asking students to, instead of just throwing away or selling items such as furniture in decent condition, donate it to Louise for her closet.
“Then, it exploded. People started graduating and started calling us right then,” she said. “I think a lot of UF students do want to do something with their furniture and not just throw it out, and so they were happy to find someone to come and pick it up.”
Although business does slow down during the semester, Louise still gets calls, and if she needs to pick up donations, she and her husband are more than willing to do so. They even have transportation solely for picking up items, which first started with a truck that was donated to her. When that truck died six-and-a-half years later, they got another one. Louise is happy to pick up anything that can be donated, and all she asks for in return is gas money for the truck she tries to keep self-sufficient. That truck plays an important role in getting items — used furniture, clothes, shoes and appliances, just to name a few — to the three rooms at Gainesville High School and the storage unit paid for by money that Louise has raised, and into the hands of those who are missing basic necessities.
Although her ESOL students and families get first dibs, she works closely with homeless advocates and provides furniture to those recently taken off the streets and placed into an apartment. She also works with recent migrants to help them get on their feet.
“When you come from another county, you can only carry two suitcases, and they’re only 50 pounds each suitcase, and you’re paying for the second suitcase, you can’t carry very much with you,” she said,” and if they’re just getting established, then we try to help them.”
Louise knows that everyone who comes by the school and sifts through donations and takes what they need is thankful.
“They’re very modest about what they take and what they ask for,” she said. “Every family is very appreciative.”
Although Yariv may not have had the same background growing up as the families who come in to take donations — she grew up in a “solid, middle-class family” — she grew up watching her parents volunteer for various organizations, and by starting the ESOL Closet, she found her niche and found a way to affect Gainesville in positive way.
“I know how lucky I was growing up,” she said. “I know that when the kids were sleeping on the floor, and we brought a bed — that’s very powerful.”
The ESOL Closet is Louise’s way of giving back to the community, and the community has shown its appreciation. In 2013, Yariv was unknowingly nominated for the Spirit of Gainesville award, and although she didn’t win, it was nice surprise for her. The following year, she won the Public Citizen of the Year Award from the Gainesville Unit of the National Association of Social Workers. Her peers agree that she has earned that award.
“She’s an excellent teacher, really, an ambassador,” said Deborah Sakalla, a substitute ESOL teacher at Gainesville High School. “She is a living legacy.”
After an uncertain amount of years as the name behind the ESOL Closet, its future remains unknown. Louise plans to retire at the end of the school year, but neither she, nor her husband, have any plans to abandon the closet or those in need.
“The need is getting greater and greater,” Louise said.
For now, the three closets at Gainesville High School continue to be full of boxes of winter clothes, snacks for the kids, handbags and other items that haven’t yet been sorted. Benches continue to sit on either side of the doorway of Room 23-011, a room full of couches, educational posters and children. Louise continues to make her kids feel comfortable speaking English, she continues to plan events for her after-school club and she continues to be the middleman for helping the community.
[A version of this story ran on page 10 on 1/8/2015 under the headline "Gainesville High School teacher helps families in need"]
Louise Yariv, an ESOL teacher at Gainesville High School, stands in one of her prop donation closets. Yariv gives donations to the families of her ESOL students and those in need.
