Overall total is 102,702 (this total does not reflect the mountain of underwear that has come in over the last 2 weeks as still sorting and counting!)

What a month it’s been! We celebrated being 5 years old on 10 August, this being the date we received charitable status. Over the last 5 years Smalls has grown more than I could ever have expected or hoped for. Going from doing a one off collection late 2009 where I hoped to collect 2000 pairs of pants to collecting over 102,000 pairs of pants and bras is just unbelievable as is the fact we have managed to distribute 75,541 (more being distributed later in the year) to schools, orphanages, IDP camps, hospitals and the slums in Kenya and Uganda. When I set up Smalls I never imagined that I’d get anywhere near this amount of underwear or be able to send girls to school but the kindness and generosity from people has been amazing so we are now paying for the education of 31 girls in Kenya and Uganda, with another 350 preschool children in Malawi coming onboard in the autumn. Thanks to everyone who has donated underwear, money or their time to make this happen.

For those of you not on facebook you might not be aware that Smalls “went viral”. On Monday 27 July all I had to worry about was going into hospital on the Thursday to get 2 wisdom teeth out, but by Wednesday that was a mere distraction. I woke up from a general anaesthetic thinking it had been a dream but it wasn’t, we really had gone from 900 likes on facebook on Monday 27 July to 25,000 on the Thursday to 50,000 by Monday 31st.

There is so much underwear to sort and count, thank you to everyone who has donated – no idea what the total will be next month as the Pantagon, Bra Bank, my garage and a neighbour’s garage is full! Can only say that the Royal Mail sorting office in Livingston knows my address given approx. 10% of all parcels they are receiving at the moment is for Smalls. The poor postman on Saturday had to make 3 trips to deliver all the sacks of underwear as his van was too small to get everything in for one trip.

My thanks to Christine and Marion for organising a sponsored walk from Glenfarg to Perth, and to all who took part. It was a walk with a difference as the currency was pants, over 4000 pairs of pants donated!