⚡️⚡️NEW DEADLINE OF THURSDAY 27TH MAY TO RAISE £3,790⚡️⚡️

Hi, my name is Magdalen and since February 2021 I have been facilitating and coordinating the Community Clothes Bank and the project now needs your help. Please do read our story below and contact me if you have any questions at all. Thank you.

Why do we need a Clothes Bank?

We’re a Community Clothes Bank based in Whitstable providing free clothes to those that need them. We hate waste and love seeing second-hand clothes going to new homes where they’re needed most. More people in the UK have been forced into poverty due to the pandemic and in the last two months alone, since we started this project, we’ve given out 234 free clothing bundles to people who have needed them from Whitstable, Canterbury, Herne Bay and Faversham. We have supported those who are financially struggling from growing families, keyworkers, refugees, to those who have been seriously ill, escaping domestic violence and many more. But we know, sadly, there’s many more that need our help.

Why we are asking for your help

During lockdown we’ve had a temporary home at The Whitstable Umbrella Community Centre (WUCC) who kindly allowed us to sort, organise and store the 1.4 tonnes of clothes and shoes kindly donated to us in their hall. We’ve also had a wonderful team of volunteers washing and mending the clothes plus helping with delivering the clothing bundles. As lockdown measures are now starting to ease, the centre has re-opened its doors to the community and so we are on the hunt for a more permanent home so we can continue helping our community at this critical time. In the meantime we have hired a storage unit and organised a ‘mobile’ clothes bank, popping up in various community halls that we have hired for the day. So we’re asking you, if you can, to donate to ensure our survival and help us reach more vulnerable people that need this service in this next stage of our project.

(photo: as you can see we really need some storage solutions!)

How your donation will help:

1) Keep a roof over our heads: We have a fantastic stockpile of clothes ready to go out to local people and families who need them, so we’re now renting a storage unit and desperately need some crates, hanging rails, basic furniture etc. Your donation will mean we can keep them safe and dry, as well as enable us to process and store more clothes donated to us. We also need to cover items like insurance, hall hire, petrol, laundry materials and other running costs.

2) Reach more people in need: So far, we’ve relied on word of mouth to find the people that need our help, but we know there’s more that could benefit from our project if we could get the word out further. We can also start approaching potential partner organisations within our community. Your donation will mean we can build a simple website, so that anyone in need searching online can find us easily, and get some leaflets made, so that partners, such as Canterbury Food Bank, can share them with the people already using their service.

We estimate we need about £8,500 to cover all of this, which will enable us to continue providing a much-needed service in our local community over the next 6 months and beyond. The more funding we can get the more people we can help. We intend to be fully transparent and will be posting on our facebook page on all the purchases we make etc.

Thank you for your support

We really need your help and support to make this project grow and would love it if you could share our story with others and donate if you can. THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading our story and for all your support xxx

You can find out more about us at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Community-Clothes-Bank-104509675001352/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/communityclothesbank/