Oh my stars! I was on the verge of tears at the end of this video. If this ain’t the clarion call to clean out my closet this weekend, I have no idea what would get me off my tush. I have the means and the t-shirts to do make something meaningful.
You can read about the Goonj project here. If you want to help a similar charity for school girls in Africa, visit Goods 4 Girls. You don’t have to sew pads in order to help!
Here is another charity that takes cloth diapers, which can be sewn from recycled material. I’ve often thought of doing something similar here in my town, where there are many poor mothers. They could literally save a $1000 + if they could switch to cloth diapers. Maybe we can talk to Crisis Pregnancy Centers or the local Salvation Army branch to see if we can teach about using cloth?
You can learn how to sew some simple diapers from used clothing here.
I wonder how/if people in the US can donate.
My family is having a yard sale and my sis said most of the clothes she was going to get rid are stained so she’s going to throw them away.
I wonder how we can get the overabundance we have in the US to people who need it. If not in India, then some other needy place.
I wonder what thrift shops do with unsellable stuff.
Karen,
Goodwill and other thrift places *sell* unsaleable clothing in bales to Africa. Then the clothes are dispersed amongst small bazaars through middlemen. Your sweater from 1992 might be in rags on a child in Nigeria. No joke!
Let me do some more research and I will add info to this post as I come across it.
~Anna