Okay! So! Clothing!!

A thread with 6 pictures. We want to discuss VOLUME, VIABILITY, LABOR, and everyone's favorite topic: LOGISTICS.

Two pictures are below - before and after. 1/?

At a glance, the volume is clear. The first picture is after a recent donation run, but before we processed it.

Before processing, it's all compressed and can be stored, but CANNOT be distributed effectively. So it must be processed. However, that expands its volume. 2/?

Volume is the most major concern in our distribution work. In our service, we are meant to fulfill our mandate as defined by the needs of the community, relayed to us directly. 3/?

This mandate is a mosaic of a hundred tiny little pieces, covering a hundred people and more, distributed by two people teams. Hygiene, medical, food, tools, clothing, information, transportation...

Our routes involve driving through town with beat-up cars from the far past. 4/?

So, wrapping back to logistics, clothing takes up the most amount of volume, clearly seen from that second picture. How do we distribute hundreds of meals, bottled waters, material goods, while still accounting for clothing? Every person's body is different, can't forget. 5/?

We cover the baseline. Socks, hats, gloves. These are universal items that protect the peripherals and don't take as much space as, say, 20 jackets. Genuinely: hundreds of socks can be stored in the space of 20 jackets. BUT JACKETS ARE ESSENTIAL! It's a tough problem. 6/?

But it's a problem we solve with gusto and sweat and stress, and one that gets easier with our expanded volunteership - especially in the back-end, who can assist with the accessions, requisitions, and logistics.

It's a lot of volume, though, and we don't have warehouses. 7/?

Distribution is, in fact, the easy part. We give it to somebody who needs it. The hard part isn't even acquisitions: people find donating clothes much easier than food or material supplies.

It's processing it. That volume directly affects the time it takes to process it. 8/?

This is the chain:
Donator: item is disused, item is donated.
Volunteer: inspects for cleaning, separates by viability, further separates by type, cleans, folds, stores, picks, distributes.

And we still gotta figure out what the hell to do with the non-viable crap we get. 9/?

This recent donation run's time and materials breakdown...

2 hours to acquire, 5-6 hours of initial folding and washing, and then an additional 16 hours to finalize things and get them accessioned into our storage spaces.

A LOT OF THAT CAN BE AVOIDED. 10/?

This is an example of the non-viable stuff we get. A red velvet onesie, a CORSET, tiny beat up heeled shoes, a single toddler's sock, and ultra skinny, ultra ripped jeans.

It is naive to think this is, for a second, useful to the houseless. 11/?

This doesn't even account for the shit stains or blood stains.

People get frustrated when they're asked to not give their refuse to us, but we're a community. We don't believe in this centralized labor where it's "set it and forget it"...we expect people to care more. 12/?

It shouldn't have to be said, but the houseless have expressed to us that they DO NOT have a use for:
-bio-stained textiles
-small and ultra-small articles
-horrendously moldy and/or torn outdoor supplies
-niche use clothing

Those two pictures up there: that's some fantastic stuff. Not sure why that was appended to the do not want list. Anyways, back to this: that non-viable pile is MASSIVE. B covers jackets, blankets, sleeping bags. C covers undergarments, shirts. A covers socks, hats, gloves. ?/?

The onesie and corset do have a place, same for the skinny jeans. So the way to do this is to evaluate the needs of your community. ASK! Ask what's useful. Vital that we support and protect our houseless sex workers. ??/?

Okay, I think that's it.

We are honored to receive your donations, but we serve people just like you, and everybody deserves some decent clothes. Work with us on this.

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