Home > Talking Pants > Talking Pants – March 2020

Total underwear collected is 1,235,241

Like many small charities, we rely heavily on our volunteers. Smalls is blessed to have possibly the best volunteers anyone could hope to have. Over the years, very little has put our sorting volunteers off turning up to open, sort and size your donations getting them ready for their onward journey. In our old premises, they experienced freezing cold conditions with no heating, water or lighting. On moving to our new premises, whilst everyone was upset and shocked at the break-in, we managed to move in a day, and they’ve worked tirelessly to process your donations as quickly as possible and to meet timescales for distributions ever since. Sadly, the current situation with COVID-19 means we’re suspending operations at our warehouse for the time being. The safety and wellbeing of our volunteers is the priority for the moment.

We’ve opened 2,814 of the 4,135 parcels of underwear we received in January, leaving 1,321 left to open. I don’t think anyone knows when life will get back to ‘normal’, but as soon as it’s safe to do so we will resume our sorting days!

We’ve given 1,840 pairs of pants to 5 organisations since our last Talking Pants.
Our thanks to:

  • Ruth Smithson for organising 210 pairs of pants to go Small Steps Forward, a charity that sponsors secondary school pupils in Miriu, Kenya.
  • Priscilla Chishala of Noah Mapola Community Centre in Zambia for organising the distribution of 600 pairs of pants.
  • CJ, founder of Sal’s Shoes, for taking 80 pairs of pants to The Winnie Mabaso Foundation, an orphanage in Johannesburg, South Africa.
  • A Shawfair surgeon who is going to Uganda to help repair fistulas for taking and distributing 300 pairs of new pants.
  • And last but not least, Days for Girls for organising 750 pairs of pants for their hygiene kits.

To find out where all your donations have gone, please see our underwear timeline.

On Thursday 19th, I received an email telling me that the online donation platform we use, Wonderful, is closing at the end of March. Fortunately, we also use CAF Donate. This is the Charities Aid Foundation’s donation processing platform through which you can make one-off or regular financial donations to Smalls for as much or as little as you like. We really are indebted to each and every person who donates.

Lastly, Smalls runs a small lottery to help with our overheads and there are a few spaces. The commitment is £5 payable on the 1st of the month. The number of people in the lottery is limited to 200. Each month, someone wins £500 and Smalls receives £500. If you’re interested in taking part, or know of anyone else who is, please email [email protected]

Take care, Maria