A Warren Central High School teacher has started a program to help young men dress for success.

Thomas Mayfield, who teaches social studies, government, minority studies and history at Warren Central, has begun a belt and tie drive to help young men dress properly for job interviews.

“A lot of young men tell me they don’t have a belt or they don’t own a necktie for job interviews, so I’m taking it up upon myself to try to accept donations for belts and neckties, and I’ll distribute them to as many young men as I can,” he said. “Hopefully I can give 18- to 22-year-old young men a chance to progress in life.

“We’re starting it for the young men at Warren Central to help them out with job interviews, and we’re also going to have dress for success days, where we try to get them to dress professionally, so this is why we started the program,” he said, adding any young man in the community can contact at Warren Central or through Facebook to get a tie or belt or both.

Mayfield said the drive is getting assistance from the United Way of West Central Mississippi, which is helping collect ties and created the fliers advertising the program. He said anyone wishing to donate money to purchase ties can send it to United Way.

He said the deadline for all donations is Aug. 31, “But I have a lot of people who said they may be trying to get something in after that date, so if I get anything after that date, we’ll certainly accept them.”

So far, Mayfield said, the drive has received a good response.

“We started (the drive) Monday and got about 100 neckties,” he said. “We’ve got five belts, but belts are harder to come by.

“It’s going pretty well at the moment.”