Donating gently used clothing is a common practice within North America. There are over 100 donation bins in the City of Toronto alone (Skrobacky, 2017). These bins that are monitored by organizations get filled with clothing year after year. However, it is tough to be confident about where your clothes are truly going. Some donation bins use the donations for resale or profit. So how can you ensure your clothes are being given to those who need them?
Check out Food Not Bought's event calendar up on our website. Our event calendar will inform you of when and where we'll be accepting gently used clothing. All of our donations go directly to housing and support centers along with many homeless shelters located in the city of Toronto or within the GTA; if you're donating to an outdoor donation bin, research what organization is providing the bin and what they do with the donated clothes.
Making sure your generously donated, gently used clothing goes to individuals who genuinely need them is so important. Ten million tonnes of clothing is thrown away annually in North America (Sun,2019), while 552,830 North Americans are homeless (CEA, 2019), 235,000 Canadians are homeless (Rech, 2019), and 12,000 Ontario residents live on the streets (Scheel, 2017).
This holiday season, if you're donating any gently used clothing, please visit our event calendar to find out when and where you can contribute, or be sure to look into the organizations that you're donating your clothing to.
“Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.” Jim Rohn
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