Three of us were hanging out on Wednesday evening, or rather, hanging off, as we lent a hand or six at a local charity shop.

Traid aims to stop clothes being thrown away, and helps to turn old and unwanted clothes into funds and resources to help reduce the impact of this on the environment and society. There are quite a few Traid stores around, and seasonally each shop packs up stock and gets a new influx of clothes from other areas - so that coat that wasn’t sold in Clapham may be exactly what someone in Hammersmith is looking for!

Our task was help the gang at King Street to pack up the old stock, ready for the new. I was first at shop, and heeled in to helping pair and bag up the old shoes. This was easier said than done, as there was only one of each pair out, and a lot of the shoes looked very similar…

Whilst that shoe-per sorting was going on, Bethan and Ishan had arrived, and were helping to take clothes off hangers. There were a lot of clothes. We worked our way through rack after rack. Some things came satisfyingly easily off the hangers, others involved some untangling. Then the piles of clothes on the floor needed moving into boxes and cages to be packed away. Cue Bethan holding a cage still whilst the Traid manager clambered on top and compressed/jumped on the piles of pinafores and heaps of hoodies.

An hour later, we were off. The rails were empty and waiting in anticipation for the new clothes to arrive… and Bethan was off to do it all again at Shepherd’s Bush!