Please consider donating pants and socks if you can

[Knitwit99]

I volunteer in a community nearly new shop. We obviously are not allowed to sell underwear, even if it's clean and like new, and we don't often get donations of brand new things.

Last week a man came in with a massive supermarket bag stuffed full of new, unopened packets of pants and socks. He said that he buys a packet every time he is food shopping and has some spare cash because he remembers how hard it was for his mum to buy these things new for him and his siblings when he was young.

There must have been about 40 packs and every single one sold that day. One woman who bought some for her teenage son was nearly in tears because she had been feeling so bad about not being able to buy her boy the things he needed.

Sometimes it's quite a wake-up call to realise just how hard up some people are. Imagine worrying about how you are going to buy your kid new socks.

So please, if you can afford it, next time you are handing in a bag of clothes to a charity shop add in a new packet of underwear if you can? It's not something I ever thought of until I started working here but I'm going to start buying an extra packet when I'm in Asda now and again.

(Sorry, I sound like a patronising do-gooder, I don't mean to)

A good tip. Thank you.

You don't sound like a patronising do-gooder at all!

Thank you so much for this.

I don't think you are being patronising. When you think about period poverty and people unable to feed children in the school holidays, inability to buy underwear is no surprise sadly.

Good idea. Will do

Great idea! Wish I had thought of it .

Thank you. I’d never have thought of this, so thanks for brining it to my attention.

Thanks for highlighting this

That’s so lovely to read-it wouldn’t have occurred to me

Thank you for letting us know. Because, I for one, didn't know.

Great idea. I’m going to drop off at a charity shop this week as it happens so will pick up some new stuff on the way.

I had some unused packs that I had bought online. Far too many and wrong sizes.
They went to the charity shop before lockdown. Still packaged.

Opened ones I put in the clean rag bag as I knew they wouldn't sell them without packaging although they go through the rags anyway so it's up to them what they do with them.

Thank you for the great tip.
You don't sound like a patronising do gooder at all. Just a nice person

Thank you for this. I'm always donating DS clothes that don't fit and nappies to the food bank so now I'm off to buy some pants and socks and find somewhere near by me that could do with them! Never thought about it before

It's a good tip, I always try and donate my used clothing but never really thought about where people would get underwear tbh.

Thank you for suggesting this! It's a wonderful idea. What a fantastic man to do this too. Brought tears to my eyes.

This is really handy actually. I normally pop a few bits in the Food Bank Bin on my way out but never think about new pants/sock etc. Will do this next time!

That's so nice of you all, people will appreciate it.

We also regularly had to replace light bulbs in our toilets and corridors. People took them because they can't afford to buy new ones for their homes. Now we have a local electrical shop who donates lightbulbs to us every month.

So many people are having such difficult times, imagine being so desperate you have to climb on a toilet to try and steal a light bulb. We're not wealthy but we never need to worry about how we're going to afford to replace a light bulb or buy our kids new socks. We are so lucky.

A thing I'm involved in is starting a clothes section i might suggest pants and socks it isn't something that occurred to me either.

This wouldn't have occurred to me either, thanks for raising this!

@Mrsjayy

A thing I'm involved in is starting a clothes section i might suggest pants and socks it isn't something that occurred to me either.

I love working in our wee clothes shop. We try hard to make it nice so that people still feel good about coming in and buying clothes for their kids, and for themselves. We're lucky, we get lots of donations so we always have a good selection. Our prices are really low, pennies really, even a decent winter coat will only be £1.

I've got teenage boys so I've got all their friends donating their outgrown clothes. Clothes for that age group are so hard to come by and they are all so label conscious.

It's harder now to let people wander around touching things which is ironic considering people are finding it harder to make ends meet and need us more than ever.

Great idea! I can't get out now before lockdown starts, but I will definitely do this when the charity shops reopen, or maybe bung some packs in the food bank.

Thank you for letting us know. And what a great man he is, and you too.

Lovely thread. 💕

That sounds great @Knitwit99
The organiser has been isolating and washing clothes this week as far as I know it is mainly womens and girls/ baby clothes atm but I hope they have donations of men and boys,

Thank you. I’ll do this.