Tucked away in a tiny theater dressing room inside a high school in Iowa is a boutique. It’s filled with dresses, slacks, ties, blazers and dress shoes for students to shop — for free.

Bobcat Boutique has only been open since February, but like any good business, the idea came long before it opened for customers.

“We start conversations in August and in September about potential service projects that we'd like to take on,” says Charlotte Santana, one of the student senate advisors at Marshalltown High School.

At the beginning of every school year, the senate discusses what service projects to hold for the rest of their classmates. They ran through a list of ideas and couldn’t decide on anything solid until they took a break to debrief the homecoming dance that had just happened. That’s

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