Kind- hearted project began from spare room
A FORMER nurse whose charity caught the eye of Paolo Nutini has told of how she first started by piling clothes into her spare room.
Alison Hastings, from Elderslie, was working in healthcare and noticed a desperate need for an organisation to redistribute clothes to families in need.
Clothed in Love began in her spare bedroom where she gathered donations and handed them out. She stockpiled donations until her room was overrun.
The 70- year- old said: “I started in 2020 and it was just an idea. Being part of Mossvale Community Church I was thinking about what I could do within the community and for the church.
“I spoke to a couple of health visitors; they were saying they didn’t have space for clothes. So, I started collecting them in the corner of my spare room, and then the bags got so much they began to meet me at the door.”
The Paisley project now runs with six volunteers, including Alison’s daughter Sara, and says that reducing the stigma of redistributing second- hand clothes is the aim it built the charity on and follows to this day.
Clothes donations are handed in by churchgoers as well as members of the public.
And after receiving cash donations, including from singer Paolo Nutini, who gave £ 10,000 after his concert in Edinburgh last year, the project has been able to fulfil more than 500 referrals for children of primary school age.
Alison says in the beginning she got great support from the church, and it helped her get initial funding. This was able to provide a storage facility the charity could use to store, catalogue and redistribute the clothes.
Vo l u n - teers put t h e i r h e a r t into every case t h e y t a k e on, meticulously ironing all the clothes and packing them with care in a gift bag.
Alison said: “Once I got known it just escalated from there. Health visitors would come in and say ‘ this is a really good thing’.”
The network grew as members of the adjoining church and other
healthcare workers became aware of the project. Clothed in Love now works collaboratively with a variety of helpers including h e a l t h v i s i t o r s , midwives, nurseries and referral organisations. It also aids refugees in the area, having recently gifted clothes to a Ukrainian family after a plea was made from the church.
The charity uses these channels to find those in need however people can still contact it directly, with Alison and her fellow volunteers selflessly dropping off items
to homes on the occasion where families can’t make it to them. After retiring in September, Alison now dedicates her free time to her charity and compares it to working a full- time job.
She said: “It’s very much dedication and a lot of commitment because you’ve got to balance your home life as well.”
Now, the volunteers say their dream is for more storage space to expand their reach and consistent funding so they can focus on what’s important.
In the last six months it has received funding from Renfrewshire Council, Beat the Street Renfrewshire, professional singer Kirsty Duncan and ROCCO Awards Renfrewshire Chamber of Commerce.
We previously reported the group also received support from Renfrewshire’s Provost Lorraine Cameron who chose Clothed in Love as one of the charities to support during her term.
Alison says previously the group was going month to month with donations, but now it has some security to run for the next while.
She said: “We looked into a few different storage places, but they’re all so expensive.
“So far, funding has just come along right on time but having the money for a storage unit permanently would give us the security to start buying clothes or toys and accessories and allow us to do more.
“It’s our dream to have our own place and at a minimum cost so we don’t have to have that pressure of applying for funding all the time.”
The group is welcoming fundraising events that are taking place over the summer, including support from women’s group Woman2Woman within the church.
Its focus now remains on building its network and continuing to provide much- needed donations to the community.