Our everyday difficult choice.
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It’s an unavoidable experience felt by many moving throughout cities across the country; the moment in which you notice an individual with nothing left. People who, with little to no support network, and perhaps without money, food, clothes or shelter, live in our country under society’s radar.
In these moments, we're left to make a choice. Should we be giving this person money or should we be supporting them some other way? If we do give them money directly, perhaps we're not truly helping and just exacerbating their situation? One question seems to underpin every encounter of this kind: how can we best support these people?
What if there could be a way to connect those in need with clothes that already exist?
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It’s almost ironic that we have a growth in the charity shop sector on our high streets. More people are donating their unwanted clothes to these shops, yet we have this problem wherein people in need are unable to get access to clothes. If a mechanism could be created in which those in need could access the stock held at charity shops, we would not only be providing them with clothes, but we would also be restoring dignity in the individual.
This is the genesis of the vision of Clothing Collective; where individuals in need can readily go into any charity shop, and choose their own clothes.
How does it work?
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We partner with charity shops who accept our gift cards in return for clothing stock held at their shops. We also partner with charities such as food banks and shelters who distribute our gift cards to those people in need to redeem them at one of our ‘charity shop partners’.
It’s a win-win scenario: those in need get access to clothing in a humane way, our ‘gift card distributing partners’ are able to support their beneficiaries in an additional way, and our ‘charity shop partners’ are able to turn around more stock from their stores, generating additional revenue for their charity cause.
