Create Your Own
Clothing Challenge
Create A Flyer
To encourage the public to participate, use the flyer template below and add your contact information and a deadline date, or create your own. Guidelines can be set to quicken the donation process. For example, encouraging participants to pick out one clothing item daily for a month or set a shorter timeline and encourage decluttering.
Gather Supplies
For this program we purchased reusable bags we found on sale, using different patterns to help us sort the various categories of clothing items and where they intend to be donated to. If you do not want to purchase bags, free boxes from a warehouse or grocery store work great as well. Other supplies we used were Post-it notes and a pen.
Research Organizations to Benefit
This step can be done before or after the flyer. If before, add the organizations to the flyer, it helps understand who the end beneficiary is. We chose a women's shelter, a organization for disadvantaged children/youth/families, a homeless shelter and a animal shelter.
Organize and Sort
As your donations come in, start sorting into your bags/boxes you have set up. Categories we used are: women's (long sleeve, short sleeve, shorts/skirts, and pants), children, men, shoes, accessories, coats, and blankets. This is the most time consuming part.
We had a few towels donated and some clothing has stains, those items we put in a bag for the animal shelter
After sorting, make sure to label the bags by category - the beneficiaries appreciate this!
Last Step:
Donate to other Organizations
We researched other Non-profits in our area. For this challenge we wanted a mixture of organizations. We found four that we felt like we could make a meaningful impact to. *Tip: Look on their websites to see what their drop off times are, large donations organizations prefer if you call ahead of time and schedule. When we dropped off they REALLY appreciated that we had already sorted/labeled the clothing ahead of time, it helps their volunteers. Some organizations will even come pick up from you if they have a route in your area.
The first non-profit we donated the received clothing items to was Women In Need, a multi-faceted domestic violence resource center that shelters, advocates and educates for a secure today and offers hope for a safer tomorrow. They have 4 locations in our surrounding area and clients are given vouchers to get items they may need for themselves or their children. We donated hallf of the women, kids and toddler items here including shoes, hats, accessories.
https://www.wintexas.org/about/mission-statement/
The second non-profit was Arms of Hope, a Christian care organization that assists children and single-mother families in need. We donated the other half of the women, kids and toddler items here including shoes, hats, accessories as well as the men's items to one of their children's homes: Boles Children’s Home (40 miles northeast of Dallas). The facilities have over 150 years combined experience in comprehensive residential care programs for children. Arms of Hope also reaches disadvantaged children in their own neighborhoods in various communities with its Outreach Ministry programs.
https://armsofhope.org/about-us/
The third non-profit we chose to donate to was Austin Street Center, which provides safe shelter and meets the basic needs of the most vulnerable homeless. Austin Street Center is one of the largest low barrier shelters in Dallas that has served men, ages 45 and older, and women, ages 18 and older since 1983. The weather is starting to get chilly so we donated coats, sweaters and blankets to this organization.
The last organization we choose was the local Rockwall animal shelter. We donated stained clothing, towels, and sheets we received.
https://rockwalladoptions.com/
With the great support from our community we were able to collect over 1,200 items over a six week period that were then passed along to other organizations. Because Rockwall County Girl Scouts assisted us in this collection drive we were able to have a positive impact on six organizations with this one challenge! After you complete the challenge in your community we would love to hear from you. Your feedback would help us evaluate the differences in each challenge's impact on the community and would allow us to tailor future projects to be efficient, impactful, and participable.
Link to results form - https://forms.gle/PcmxwZAco7VV4ymK7
