Collections Update
Last October and November we held a toy and clothing drive for local agencies. The response was so wonderfully overwhelming that we were able to add a couple new agencies to the distribution. We were able to get all the toys and clothes needed to all the agencies before the winter holiday and before the lockdown.
The pandemic had a huge impact on all our local agencies and their ability to distribute items and to even conduct their regular programming. During the lockdown many were not even able to provide services to their clients, no less give them items that were not necessarily in their realm of priorities. We had to ask several of our long time donors to hold onto their donations until we were able to distribute them. We are happy to report that nearly every item that was donated or was being held by the donor has found its way to agencies over the course of these past 6 months. When one local agency stopped accepting items, we found another local agency eager for support. In the past 6 months our support of local agencies has grown to more than 15 local agencies.
This past month we were approached by a longtime local partner agency. They and another agency had collected clothes for their adult clients, but due to the pandemic their work shifted and they could not manage to distribute the clothes as planned. They asked for our help. Claudia, our collections coordinator, did not hesitate, she spent days calling agencies. Since the agency needed the space and was happy to share the clothes to those in need, Claudia was able to find a local agency supporting homeless men. She pulled all the men’s clothes and took them to the agency in Winterthur. The majority of those women’s clothes are headed to an agency that supports families in Eastern Europe. The sports clothes are being held for a local sports group that supports youth in need. The bras are going to a local online bra store, BRATIQUE. They collect gently loved bras and send them to Africa for women in need. The children’s clothes they had, plus the remaining items we had, went to a new children’s local agency. In total, we sorted nearly 300kg of clothes in a matter of a week.
Almost every week, 2 small deliveries have been occurring. Claudia quietly packs her car with items and delivers to agencies throughout Canton Zurich. The smaller deliveries allow for agencies to absorb and distribute in a more timely and efficient manner. The spring and summer efforts have shifted to an as needed basis for two reasons. One, currently, agencies are not able to take the amount of items like pre-pandemic. Two, we are searching for a storage space to allow us to be more efficient and able to accept additional items.
We are doing very specific collections this spring. We have a rain gear drive currently happening for local children. We have an adult bike collection for local refugees (the children’s bikes have all been collected). In addition, we do specific pop up collections that we post on our social media when an agency is in need.
Little by little, the items collected are finding their homes. The pandemic has changed our efforts, but has not stopped the good work of our donors, volunteers and community.
