Clothing sale has special price — free
Thousands of boxes filled with “good quality, pre-sorted clothing” — at no cost.
That’s right, all of these secondhand clothes are being given away for free.
Come all ye hipsters, bargain browsers, frugal foragers, and economical, environmentally friendly fashion is t as.
The Society of St Vincent de Paul in the Western Bay of Plenty, bursting with donations, is having its first “community free sale”.
Area manager Lorna Edlin told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend yesterday that the society’s local op-shops were “chocka” and this was a last resort.
“We’re inundated,” she said. “We thought, you know, we’re sick of throwing stuff away. The one thing we cannot do in Tauranga is recycle clothing. There is no one that’s willing to get on board to help us.”
Edlin said she had tried sending trucks to Auckland to give the clothes away and had tried ringing around schools to organise sales. They also filled containers with clothes for Fiji through Aquinas College.
“We’re happy and prepared to give it to anyone who wants it. But no one wants it.”
Edlin estimated there were about
3000-4000 banana boxes full of donated clothing, as well as blankets, duvets and shoes.
On February 23, between 10am2pm at 67 Courtenay Rd, rows and rows of the boxes would be opened and laid out for the public to browse through.
“There’s a lot of really nice stuff in there.”
Edlin said there were designer brands as well as some retro items and clothing from stores such as The Carpenter’s Daughter and North Beach.
A similar sale a few years ago, when the clothes were sold for $2 a bag, attracted thousands of people.
Edlin said people “freak out” when they arrive at the storage facility and see boxes stacked high towards the ceiling in places.
“This is hours and hours of manpower — going through and sorting all this stuff.”
She said all the clothes were donations that had come through the local op-shop stores and had been sorted, with items containing marks, holes and stains removed.
About 90 per cent of the clothes were women’s.
Edlin said local firefighters would help unload all the boxes on the day and the Society of St Vincent de Paul in the Western Bay of Plenty planned to hold the free sales twice a year.
“What we do at St Vincent de Paul is we feed people, we clothe people, that’s part of our mission statement, and I thought what a good way to get a bit of goodwill with the community and also a bit of publicity.”