The Items Homeless Shelters Need Most Right Now Might Surprise You

On any given day there are 600,000 people experiencing homelessness in America, and about one-quarter of them are teenagers or children. That's why thousands of DoSomething members are providing daily essentials to their local homeless shelters through Supplies, Sealed, Delivered, a campaign powered by TikTok. Young people all over the country are working together to run collection drives in their communities and give back to those who need it most -- and the items they're donating might surprise you.

You might not realize it, but even the small items you pick up on your weekly drugstore run have the power to make a huge impact. Here are some of the things shelters need the most right now (and some things to avoid).

Here are some daily essentials most shelters really need:

These are items you should avoid donating:

DoSomething.org is the largest not-for-profit exclusively for young people and social change. Our digital platform is activating 6 million young people (and counting!) to create offline impact in every US area code and in 131 countries.