Aarya Tyagi can barely keep up with all the clothes.

While some might just see a rack of jackets and some bins of shoes and other clothing items, Aarya says to those who left it all behind, it’s so much more.

“There’s not as many outlets to help refugees so we wanted to give them winter clothes, because it’s cold in Upstate New York,” Tyagi said.

Since September, New York has welcomed more than 1,100 Afghan refugees due to political unrest and the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces. With many moving here with what little they could bring, Aarya and his group Teens for Refugees began asking classmates and teachers at Shaker High School to bring any items they no longer needed to donate.

“I started to see donations pile in every day. The classrooms … I was in, the entire size of the classrooms was filled with bags,” Tyagi said.

The bags turned into multiple car loads, in fact, which were dropped off at Grassroots Givers, a nonprofit that helps refugee families in the Capital Region.

The donation was so big that it caught the organization off guard.

“Yes, there were so many bags. It is a small space, and we try to move quickly,” said Grassroots Givers Co-Director Roberta Sandler. “When the phone was ringing, we were trying to step over these bags and hop to the phone. Probably 40 bags of these beautiful items.”

Aarya and his classmates may never meet any of the refugees, but he says it’s important they make their community feel like home to those who left theirs behind.

“They were forced to move here; they were displaced. I feel like it’s our obligation to do this kind of thing and help other people, because they can also help us too,” Tyagi said. “They are part of our community.”

The winter items will now be passed to a community that needs them.