Total underwear collected is 1,000,711

I think I said this last time, but if you remember (!) that the collected figure last month was 945,522, looking at this month’s figure you can tell we’ve been really busy at the warehouse. We’ve continued with 3 sorting days a week to try to catch up on the backlog of opening and sorting, and I’m happy to tell you we’re now opening donations received in February. However, it will be next month before we get to opening donations received in March. If you sent us your email address but haven’t yet received an acknowledgement, please bear with us.

The last 4 weeks have been particularly trying for the volunteers who sort at the warehouse. I know I’m biased, but they’re an amazing bunch of people who really keep me going. As well as being incredibly busy dealing with your donations, we’ve had 5 distributions to get ready, one of which is for 90,000 pants and bras which will be picked up by NPAC next week. You may remember me telling you last year that we’re working in a warehouse that had no heating or hot water, but we made it work. Unfortunately, things got a little worse for us when the electricity was cut off. We’re now working without heating (we had small electric heaters) or lights. But the volunteers have been turning up with flasks, torches, their thermals and a smile, and have just got on with it – they’re just pantastic!

This month, we’ve supplied a further 1,050 pairs of pants to Days for Girls UK for their reusable feminine hygiene kits which will be distributed to various parts of Africa, and 1,000 pairs of pants to The Tumaini Fund who work with widows and orphans affected by HIV in Kagera, Tanzania. We’re also delighted to provide underwear for the first time to 2 organisations. Our thanks to Nikki Kamminga from Project Kidogo for taking 250 pairs of new pants for the teenage girls in Taboro, Tanzania. Thanks also to Tina Rayburn from Action in Africa for taking 450 new pairs of pants with her when she travels to Tanzania later this month. Action in Africa funds education and one-off health and building projects in Nyaishozi, a remote community in north eastern Tanzania.

For details of where all your donations go, please have a look at our underwear timeline.

It’s at this point I thank everyone who has made an underwear or financial contribution to support our work. And this month is no different – apart from the fact we’ve now collected over 1 million pants and bras! I triple checked the figure and don’t know why I was surprised, but it was a bit of a shock when I realised. When I came back from Ethiopia in September 2009 with the aim of collecting 2,000 pairs of pants, who knew that nearly 10 years later over 1 million pants and bras would have been donated by all of you! We don’t have a partnership with some of the big name retailers – yes we sometimes get sent end-of-stock items but not huge amounts – this million has been donated by individuals, groups, churches, schools and offices. Which for me makes the fact we’ve collected over a million so amazing.

Thank you to everyone who has played a part in reaching this phenomenal amount of underwear donated. And yes I hope we reach a million distributed soon!

Maria