For a lot of us, there would be a time in our past that we made a choice that did not turn out to be the best or we struggled through a tough time or even gone without. For many of us, we might have had the support of family, friends, colleagues that helped us through. We felt loved and cared for which gave us the courage to keep trying and moving forward.
For many of the children and family we support, we are their support network who show them love and encouragement. We hope that our kindness gives them the courage to keep moving forward. That is why, we take such pride in what we give these families. We want them to feel like they are receiving a gift of lovely clothing or a safe sleep space for their baby or child from a friend and to also feel the thoughtfulness of what this gift represents.
This gift starts with you, you are the one who makes the decision to part with your child’s treasured items in hope that another child can treasure it. Your items are a gift and that makes it even more important to ensure they are still in good condition. Clothing that has sat in cupboards and draws can be marked with milk stains or dirt and might even smell a little. Car seats have food caked into the covers (we have all been there), prams that have marks you don’t know where they came from (again, been there before).
By taking the time to do a quick clean of each item you are donating will mean the difference between them being given out to a child quicker or it items waiting to be processed and cleaned by our volunteers.
If you can sort through each item of clothing and removing anything that is marked, stained or well-worn and given a quick wash of the items ready for donation, this will enable these treasured items to be packaged with love by our volunteers quicker. Toys, cots and prams also need to be cleaned before being re-homed so a quick wipe down of these items before you donate them will really help our volunteers process your donation quicker. Best things about car seats is the covers can be removed and then washed in the washing machine. Don’t stress about putting the covers back on, just pop them into a bag once they are clean and dry and attach the bag to the car seat. We will pop them back on after we have safety checked the seat.
We understand that cleaning isn’t the most enjoyable task but cleaning these items will result in vulnerable children having the items they deserve. What better gift is there?