Clothes Banks ?

Great idea Puzzler.
I too am wary of freecycle. I have given things in the past which I think were sold on.

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I live in the North West and if you ring Bliss (a charity to help babies) they will arrange a collection and come to your house to pick up. You can leave the bags on the drive. They accept shoes and clothing .I had one last week.

It is worth asking your Big Issue seller if he/she would like some clothes. My seller is called Stefan and comes from Romania. He has a wife , two teenage daughters and a 7 year old son. I have given him a few items, including ones I got with staff discount as a volunteer at Salvation Army charity shop.

All clothes recycling banks (and glass etc) round me have been removed because of fly-tipping next to them. I do despair of humanity sometimes.

asylum applicants and even some people who have been granted leave to remain are categorised as having no recourse to public funds.
that means no sick pay, no housing benefit, no unemployment pay, nothing. even though some who have been granted the right to work, and are paying taxes and NI. so if anything goes wrong, sickness, loss of job, they are really stuck. they are destitute. so please consider donating to a refugee centre, which are in most cities.

The British Heart Foundation will come to your home + collect if you phone them. But not too sure if that's just unwanted furniture items.

In our Tesco supermarket car park there are 2 massive metal containers so I always put our old clothes + shoes we don't want anymore in those. Which currently are for The Salvation Army this last year and currently not "sealed" in this 2nd lockdown. As first lockdown all these containers at all of the supermarkets were shut/sealed with metal plates. As charity shops not currently open + like some mention don't want to take any more further donations.

paddyanne

We need control of our own financed Jayt we get less than half of what we raise back from Westminster while they pocket the rest and then borrow and tell us we owe them the money they sent on things like London Sewers ,London crossrail ,HS2 etc etc etc .If we have control over our own income we can have a much fairer society ,we're making strides as it is with the SNP mitigating tory policies but we need full control to make the changes we must for the sake of future generations

Tax revenue generated in Scotland amounts to about £66 billion, including North Sea oil revenue, but it benefits from about £81 billion in public spending. That means Scotland benefits from £15 billion more than it puts in. Also, this year, the UK Government guaranteed £8.2 billion of additional funding to the Scottish Government to help respond to Covid.
How does that tie in with your statement above, paddyanne?

This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind Justwidowed and I think I have found it !! I live in Berkshire and there is a Christian charity which provides clothes for homeless people of all faiths or none. It is called The Cowshed and they also accept bedding and curtains which is brilliant.Volunteers sort ,wash and iron the donations. It is only about 8 miles from me and I never knew it existed. Thanks to all who put me on the trail.

After my husband died in October last year,the following February my SIL and I sorted through all his clothes and filled 13 large plastic bags with clothes and shoes.He had a lot .of clothes.The Emmaus homeless charity collected them all and even took some furniture.,books and jigsaw puzzles.
I hope I made a number of homeless people happier.

There are some brilliant ideas here. Thank you all so much. Clearly I need to do some more research into my area to find out if some of these function near me.

Absolutely zilch response rate from freecycle or freegle, or the other one.

I don't understand it; I usually am able to sell stuff on Ebay, even if I only end up breaking even, but nobody is interested.

Freecycle is brilliant - and it works. There's bound to be a local one near where you are.

Good luck with that!

Apart from olio, (and I don't use facebook, but have someone I know put stuff up to give away; no takers) I have tried all of the other suggestion, for months and months, with no joy.

Let’s keep sniping political comments off Gransnet please!

Hello. Just wanted to say that here in Nottingham we have an actual clothes bank called Sharewear. It was set up in 2014 and helps individuals, the charity Framework which works with homeless and vulnerable people, the local hospitals and more. I think it is absolutely brilliant and should be copied throughout the country. Charity shops are great places but the poorest people often can't even afford their prices so a place where they can obtain clothing for free is needed. I support charity shops with other donations but clothes will go to Sharewear.

Jayt you would be surprised at the amount of monied people why buy secondhand children’s clothes ...

Do you have to get rid of them now? Couldn't you wait till the charity shops are open again? It is a shame to throw away good clothes, not just because they might help the poor, but also because if someone can get some use out of them then they don't need to buy new clothes that use up precious resources, so its win win. I often buy clothes from charity shops and have found some good bargains there that have lasted for years.

Many churches offer Winter night Shelter for the homeless, they are always most grateful for different clothes. Organisations which help abused women or men who have had to flee their family home for a safe place. We have nextdoor neighbour app, where people share...good and bad, or lonely.

Greenfinch the one in Tonbridge is run exactly along the lines that you describe.

Well a clothes bank certainly exists in Tonbridge. The clothes bank and food bank are both based in Tonbridge Baptist Church. They do an amazing job. Just really sad that in a wealthy country such as ours that they are necessary.

My town has a Salvation Army clothing bank sited at the local school. I also use the Olio App, Freecycle or FaceBook Marketplace to offer unwanted items for free and they are always snapped up.

Before the first lockdown I volunteered with the Salvation Army giving out clothes to the homeless. Although the soup kitchen re-opened after the first lockdown, the clothes distribution still isn't happening in our town. I often collected clothing and bedding that was offered on freegle and passed it on to the SA but I've had to turn down offers during lockdown as I have limited space to store it at home. It's a shame as there are needy homeless people out there and I don't know how they manage without the fresh supplies of clean underwear etc. Unfortunately some of our client were very choosy about what they asked us for and I think many of them were selling on the best things that we gave out. We had to give them the benefit of the doubt unless we had definite evidence. If I collect anything from freegle I always make it clear if it is for me or for the homeless.

Not a clothes bank exactly but our local Tesco are collecting coats for homeless people's charities.
I am not a Tesco shopper but one of my neighbours is collecting any unwanted coats from people in our road to take down there.
Might be worth seeing if your local Tesco is doing the same if you have any old coats you no longer need. I was surprised at how many old coats I had that have not been worn for a couple of years or more.