Our History
In August 1968, fifteen Colorado Springs women felt there were school-aged children (kindergarten through high school) in need of suitable clothing for school. They recognized the connection between appropriate school clothes and increased self-confidence, which translates to better performance at school. These fifteen women started the Assistance Guild to meet these needs.
In 1969, the first year of operation, seventeen children were provided with clothes at a cost of $7.50 per child. We have grown considerably since then. From our opening campaign in 1969 through May of 2025, a total of 105,000 children have received clothing and other necessary items through our Beyond the Classroom program.
With that kind of growth, our organization has called quite a few places “home” over the years.
We began in a small house on S. Tejon St. which housed both our meeting space and our Bargain Box Thrift Store.
When we outgrew the house on Tejon, the City of Colorado Springs helped us move to the County Courthouse, which is now the Pioneer’s Museum. In an interesting process, the students entered through the Sheriff’s Office and collected their items from one of the courtrooms.
In 1974, we moved into a house on Uintah St. owned by School District #11. The school district waved the rent on the house in appreciation for the assistance we had given their students. We paid the utilities and maintained the premises.
Next, we rented a building on E. Costilla St. for our thrift store. It was just around the corner from our current Bargain Box location. With the help of an El Pomar Foundation grant, we were able to purchase the building in April of 1975. It was larger, but we were still outgrowing the space. In 1981, we purchased the adjoining building. By 1983, we were able to occupy the building, and had room to move all of the stored clothing from the Uintah house to this new space.
In 2015, we were able to purchase the building that houses our current Bargain Box, located at 405 S. Nevada Ave., along with a Service Center building on Cimarron Street. The Bargain Box is now a much larger store, which has given us the capacity to offer many more items. The Service Center has offices, work spaces, as well as meeting and storage spaces. We continue to use both buildings today.
Our early model was to use proceeds from our Bargain Box thrift store, along with donations and grants, to purchase goods from local businesses and from wholesalers. We purchased clothing along with hygiene kits, books, supplies, and backpacks, depending on grade level. These items would be stored and distributed at the beginning of the school year.
As the years have progressed, we have adjusted our program, now named Beyond the Classroom, to meet changing needs. Beginning in 2013, we began partnering with a retail store for several weeks each fall, meeting students and parents there during after school hours and on weekends. Students from elementary school through high school were allotted a specific amount to spend, depending upon their grade level. In the fall of 2016, over a three-and-a-half-week period, 2,721 students were able to choose their own clothing in the store using those gift allotments. Each participating student was also given a hygiene kit. These students came from 171 schools in El Paso County.
When COVID created so many challenges, Beyond the Classroom responded by dispensing clothing and hygiene kits out of our Service Center to representatives of the schools we served. During the 2022-2023 school year, Beyond the Classroom distributed 2,203 Famous Footwear gift cards and 3,148 pieces of clothing to students in need. This program served 71 schools in the Pikes Peak region with a budget of $153,100.
In 2024, we partnered with United Way, and Beyond the Classroom is now offering clothing, hygiene supplies, and Famous Footwear gift cards directly to students out of a space in United Way’s Family Success Center. During the 2024-2025 school year, Beyond the Classroom, working with an annual budget of $225,000, put more than 6000 pieces of clothing, 6,800 hygiene items, and 2,170 Famous Footwear gift cards into the hands of students in need.
Those fifteen Assistance Guild members in 1968 truly had a vision, and we are proud to continue their work today. Not only are we meeting their original goal of clothing school children in need, but we are also monitoring the hearing health of preschoolers, assisting assault survivors, furnishing beds and bedding to youths in housing transitions, providing comfort for children in traumatic situations, caring for parents of babies lost, promoting children’s literacy, helping homeless veterans, and offering quality goods to the community at reasonable prices in our store. We value the contributions of our past and present partnerships as we work together to support our local community. We do all of this as an all-volunteer organization funded by proceeds from our thrift store, generous donations from our community, fundraising efforts, and through bequests and grants.
Early in our history, the Assistance Guild became affiliated with a national organization. This affiliation helped put into place governance structures, along with much appreciated support and collaboration. In 2025, after careful consideration and reflection, we decided to disaffiliate from our national organization, effective June 1, 2025. This decision was thoughtfully considered and rooted in our desire to better serve the changing needs of El Paso County and our community partners. As we transition into a new era of service, our mission to support the local community and the operation of our Bargain Box thrift store will remain the same. We will continue our commitment to improving the well-being of children, families, and neighbors in need under our new name, B-COS We Care for Our Community. We remain dedicated to fostering positive change in the El Paso County community.
For more detail regarding our Beyond the Classroom efforts, please go to the Philanthropic Programs tab on this website and choose Beyond the Classroom. The Bargain Box Thrift Store tab on this website will give you more information on the main source of funding for our philanthropic programs.
