Home > Talking Pants > Talking Pants – October 2025

Total underwear collected is 2,418,493

Thank you for sending us a pantastic 1,482 parcels in September.

Since our last Talking Pants, we’ve provided new pants and new & gently worn bras to 6 organisations:

  • 3,760 pairs of pants and bras to Friends of Mulanje Orphans, an organisation providing support to orphans in Mulanje, Malawi.
  • 145 pairs of pants to Happy Baby Community, a London based charity supporting mums and babies.
  • 228 pairs of pants to Care4Calais (Slough/Heathrow).
  • 1,680 pairs of pants to Freedom4Girls for inclusion in their dignity kits for girls in Kenya.
  • 450 pairs of pants to Smiles for Miles Castleford, a uniform bank supporting people in the Wakefield district.
  • 150 pairs of pants to the Bethany Trust Care Van who support homeless people in Edinburgh.

Like many small charities, we’re always looking for ways to raise money to help with our running costs. To be honest, the worst part of my job is thinking of ways to raise funds. I would never make a good fundraiser so I’ve always looked at ways of creating income streams where there’s “something” in it for the person parting with their cash. For example, the Smalls lottery where you have a 1 in 200 chance of winning £500 but Smalls receives £500 each month. You might be aware that we have a Vinted shop as well as an eBay shop, and last month we held a pop-up shop at Smalls for 2 weeks. 

So where do we get the items to sell? It’s important that people understand what we do with their donations. In the 1,482 parcels we received this month there will have been new pants, new and gently worn bras, thongs (new and without tags), swimsuits, bikinis, basques, suspender belts, sportswear, tights, socks, clothing, the list goes on.

The new pants and new bras will be given to people in need in Africa and the UK. The gently worn bras will be given to people in need too, but we also sell gently worn bras to recycling company LMB. However, as you can see from the list above, we often receive items we don’t collect or that aren’t suitable to pass on to the people we help. For example, we don’t collect thongs – if they’re new with tags, we sell them in our shops along with the other items that are new or gently worn. We also pass things on to other local charities or good causes where appropriate. Sometimes we receive things from people specifically for selling to help raise funds. Generally this will be when a shop closes and they’re looking to offload stock, which is great for us. We would only ever sell these items if we had permission.

So, we regift, recycle and sell wherever we can to limit what we have to send to landfill. By shopping with us, you’re not only helping us ‘go green’; you’re contributing to our running costs. Here are the links to our shops – you never know, with Christmas coming up you might find a bargain!

As always, thank you all for supporting Smalls, Maria

P.S.