Total underwear collected is 2,446,349

Thank you for sending us a pantastic 1,905 parcels in January.

As always at this time of year, we have a bit of a backlog so if you sent us an email address with your donation and haven’t yet received an acknowledgement, please bear with us. We’re working hard to catch up! At time of writing this, we’ve almost completed opening January’s parcels, and will be starting on February’s hopefully next week.

Since our last Talking Pants, we’ve provided new pants and new & gently worn bras to 9 organisations:

• 2,000 pairs of pants and bras to the Mtende Community Project, an organisation working in Ekwendeni, Malawi.
• 820 pairs of pants to The School Bank, West Lothian.
• 1,800 pairs of pants to Chifundo UK who run a project delivering reusable sanitary pads, soap, flannel with training about menstrual health to girls in schools around Blantyre, Malawi.
• 1,105 pairs of pants and bras to ShowerBox, an organisation in London giving showers and toiletries to people in need.
• 1,360 pairs of pants to Pelican Parcels, an organisation helping people in Hove with clothes and basic essentials.
• 1,705 pairs of pants to Freedom4Girls, a period poverty charity that makes kits for girls in Kenya, also supporting schools in the Leeds area.
• 84 pairs of pants to The Swiss Church in London.
• 166 pairs of pants and bras to Dundee International Women’s Centre.
• 14 bras to Breast Buddies Angus.

It’s been a busy start to the year with over 10,000 pants and bras being given to 15 organisations so far. One of the organisations that has received underwear this year is the Bridges Project, who support young people in East Lothian and Midlothian.

The organisation’s Rhona Emsley told us, “Our purpose is to enable socially excluded young people to access and sustain the key services they require to make a safe transition to adult responsibilities. We also assist young people to remain in, or return to, their own or the wider local community. It’s important for us to be able to give out underwear so that the young people have the dignity it provides.”

And here are a couple of recent feedback quotes the Bridges Project received from people they gave the underwear to:

• “This has assisted me to pay day, I’ve been struggling recently and this has given me a lift, massive thanks.”
• “This has cheered me right up, I feel emotional, it’s nice to know nice people are still out there.”

As you may know, Smalls runs a small lottery to help with our overheads. While there are no spaces at the moment, we normally have a wee ‘reserve’ list of people who would like to join. The commitment is £5 payable on the 1st of the month, and the number of tickets is strictly limited to 200. Each month, someone wins £500 and Smalls receives £500. If you’re interested in joining our reserve list to take part as soon as a number becomes available, please email [email protected]. Thank you!

Thanks as always for supporting Smalls.

Maria

P.S. If you’d like to donate money, you can do so here: https://bit.ly/money-sfa 

Or donate pants the easy way: https://bit.ly/give-sfa