West Hove Infants held a very successful clothes swop at school.
They had 36 bags of clothes donated weighing 176.5kg in total – all but 58.8kg of clothes were re-homed.
Here are their tips for running a successful clothes swop!
How to do a Big Clothes Swap
- Send out a message to parents and put up posters to let everyone know about your clothes swap.
- Be specific about what you are collecting, and ask for clean wearable items. (We asked for children’s clothes, school uniforms, coats and shoes).
- Collect large boxes to put out at drop off and collection times to leave donated clothes .
- Put the boxes out on a few specified days so you don’t get too overwhelmed by donations.
- Give yourself time and space to sort and fold the clothes. This is the hardest bit.
- Recruit lots of helpers and collect bags to carry the clothes in.
- Choose a good weather day for the swap, and lay out clothes in different groups of ages. Label the tables.
- Left over uniform will be offered to new parents, clothing will be left out for parents to take or passed on to charity shops, and old clothing will be recycled. The only thing we threw away were 3 odd shoes.
‘We did our clothes swap over 3 days, which was a bit tight. You need to leave more time for sorting. 2 days were collecting and 1 day was the swap.
Also, invite staff to come along too.
The best thing about this was that no money changed hands, and everyone felt comfortable helping themselves to whatever and as much as they wanted. No stigma and no judgment. ‘
Fantastic event West Hove Infants!
