5 places to donate your clothes right now.
Your clothes not sparking joy? Here is the list of 5 places to donate your clothes today.
Your friends, family or even you yourself may have gone through your closet, picked a piece of clothing and asked, ‘Does it spark joy?” after Netflix released “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo”. If your clothes sparks joy that’s great, keep it, use it and mend it! If It doesn’t then you may think about throwing it away which we do not want you to do since Americans, “… throw away 13 million tons of textiles — about 85 percent of their clothes — each year, accounting for 9 percent of total non-recycled waste”.
Think about handing it down to your friends, siblings or your cousins. If you prefer donating, here are five places you can donate your clothes at:
Before making a donation make sure the clothes are in a usable condition, something you would wear if it was sparking joy.
1. American Red Cross:
American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistant and disaster relief. They also provide clothes to natural disaster victims. They have selected Greendrop to raise funds along with clothing items. You can either drop your clothes off or schedule a pickup. Find more information here: https://www.gogreendrop.com/redcross/clothing-donation-pickup
2. Dress for Success:
Dress for Success is an organization, “… that empowers women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.” Since its foundation in 1997 in New York, it has expanded its work to more than 150 cities and 30 countries. In 2017, it served 74,000 women, of those 74,000 67% lived below poverty line. You can find their donation guidelines here:
And, you can find information on where you can donate here:
3. Career Gear:
Career Gear is a similar organization like Dress to Success who accepts professional attire for men. In addition to providing attire they also focus on Professional Development (financial literacy, family & child support services) and Mentoring (job search techniques, credit & debit management). They have also committed to saving energy and reducing carbon footprint. You can find more information about donation here:
4. Room to Grow:
In the United States, 2.7 million children under the age of three live in poverty. Room to Grow’s mission is to, “… offer structured coaching, material goods, and community connections to support parents as they activate their natural strengths and expand their knowledge, so children thrive from the start.” Baby items include toys, books, clothes, hygiene supplies, bedding and baby equipment. You can donate baby items or even host a drive, you can find more information here:
https://roomtogrow.org/index.php/get-involved - donate-baby-items
5. Soles 4 Souls:
Since its foundation in 2006, Soles 4 Souls has distributed 35 million of shoes in 127 countries and have kept 51 million pounds of shoes and clothing out of landfills. You can find information on how you can donate here:
If the above organizations do not accept your unwanted but wearable clothing items then you can do the following:
Donate to local churches, thrift stores or community outreach centers
Attend or host a clothing swap
Sell your clothes and other items online
Repurpose your clothing (eg. Change your long sleeve t-shirt to short sleeve t-shirt and use the left-over fabric as a rag)