Total underwear collected is 1,543,391

Although it’s not the start to 2021 I hoped it would be, we still have a lot to be thankful for.

Smalls is OPEN to accept donations, despite our volunteers not being able to work because of Covid restrictions. As you’ll appreciate, we’re a little behind – so apologies to anyone (who enclosed their email address) who hasn’t heard back from us yet. We received a pantastic 3,071 parcels in December, but still have about 1,700 of them to open which we won’t be able to start on until lockdown is lifted.

Although our warehouse is closed at the moment, we were delighted to help Uman Tok by providing 1,400 pairs of pants for their hygiene kits. Uman Tok produce and distribute hygiene kits and give sexual, reproductive health education to women and children in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Good start to the year given the circumstances we find ourselves in just now! 

Someone put out a well-intentioned post in 2019 which had some misinformation in it suggesting we collect underwear to help prevent rape, which is not the case. It also used our old address and gave details of another charity that was collecting make-up. Unfortunately, the post is still being shared and is resulting in us receiving – largely to our old address ­­– donations of make-up which we don’t collect and can’t use. As you know, we collect only NEW pants and new and gently worn (laundered) bras to help those in Africa and the UK who can’t afford or don’t have access to underwear.

Where we see posts with misinformation we try to get them fixed, but that’s not always easy. I’m hoping that the power of social media and word of mouth will help correct the message and reduce the number of donations going to our old address. More than ever just now it’s pantastic to have the support of so many kind and generous people – we just want to make sure they know what we collect and why, and that we can use what people send us.

Big thank you to Stacey Solomon. Just before Christmas we were surprised (and delighted) when Stacey showed via Instagram how easy it is to donate to Smalls. And a recent post on our Facebook page, asking for help in spreading the (right) word about what we collect and why, had over 1,200 shares. If you’re aware of anyone about to send a donation to us, perhaps you could check:

• They have the correct address (Five Sisters Business Park, Westwood, West Calder, EH55 8PN)
• They’re sending NEW pants and new and gently worn (laundered) bras
• They’ve enclosed their email address if they want an acknowledgement email

Last month we launched our Christmas ecards on our website. Well we now have 6 more designs! Happy birthday, congratulations and thank you have now been added (two of each), and of course I’m biased, but I think they’re truly pants. While there’s no charge, if you’d like to make a donation for an amount of your choosing, it really will make a massive difference to us. I’d love to know what you think about them.

Send an e-card (smallsforall.org) – http://bit.ly/ecard-sfa

Thank you all for continuing to support Smalls.

Maria