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)