Clothes donations

In February, our offices in Canterbury moved from the old offices in St Martin’s Hospital to the Eastern and coastal area offices just down the road. We had only been in our new office for three weeks when COVID-19 descended upon us. At our new offices, we have two large cupboards that house donated clothes for patients on our wards if they need them. We were ready to resume this service but were informed by our fabulous infection control team that the clothes could not be made available to patients unless they had been washed at 60 degrees, ironed and bagged.

So, we started thinking of a way we could continue offering this service and make sure these requirements were met. We contacted our volunteers to see if anyone was willing to use their washing machine for a load if we provided the washing powder and softener with deliveries arranged by our volunteer drivers. We had an amazing response! Clothes are now being washed, folded, bagged and labelled so this brilliant service can be resumed.

Zoe, our Voluntary services co-ordinator (east Kent), managed to source individual clothing bags kindly donated by the Fred Perry store at the designer outlet in Ashford.

A big thank you to Geoff, Alice, Sandra, Lorraine, Claire and Jane for their care and dedication. Thanks also go to Norman and Jack, two of our amazing volunteer drivers who also stepped up.