Pre-loved Clothes Drive for Goonj

 We kicked off this year's pre-loved clothes, shoes, and toys collection drive between 6th and 14th October. This drive coincided with the Dasara/Bathukamma festival holidays. We had an overwhelming response for the drive from Atrians, and we even had to extend the drive for one more weekend, 18th-20th of October, to allow more donors to drop their bags at the designated places.

This year we also wanted to show appreciation towards the support staff at Atria (maids, housekeeping, and others). We invited 80+ support staff to pick clothes and toys for themselves or their loved ones. The rest of the proceeds are donated to Goonj.

Atrians once again opened their hearts and donated 4 mini-trucks full of used clothes, toys, and shoes. As per Goonj, it amounted to 4000 KGs of material and is one of the largest single donations they ever received. As usual, the proceeds will be processed and repurposed by Goonj as care kits and other products that will help the disenfranchised or impoverished populace in remote corners of India.

Atria Youth Initiative extends our gratitude to all the donors for opening their closets and clearing the gently used clothing and shoes. We also thank our EC and JLL for helping us organize these drives, provide logistic support and help make these service drives successful.

Pre-loved Clothes Drive for Goonj

 Atria Youth Initiative conducted a used clothes/toys/shoes drive in collaboration with Goonj from the 14th to the 28th of October 2023 on the premises of Rajapushpa Atria. This time the drive coincided with the Bathukamma/Dasara festivals as well as the Daan Utsav drive by Goonj. We wanted to conduct this drive for one week but due to holidays, we had to extend it for another week. 

Atria residents once again showed their generous hearts and extended their hands to help the less fortunate. With this drive, we received 3600 kg (or 8000 lbs) of clothes and other materials! We filled up 3 pickup trucks to the brim with clothes and other items. That's about 900 cubic feet of kindness sent to the resource-scarce people of the remotest parts of the country. We ran out of storage room space and had to create makeshift areas towards the end.

Goonj will sort the donated clothes and create kits with gently used clothing. These kits are then distributed to the women, men and kids in the underdeveloped areas of our country. The unuseable clothes are used to create recycled items like purses, bags, file folders, menstrual pads etc. They do not sell bulk clothes to raise funds.

We could not thank our community and EC enough for supporting us, messaging us to extend the drive and making it successful. And special thanks to JLL and housekeeping staff who helped move boxes every three days to storage and then load the boxes.

One more successful drive is in the books. We will look for other opportunities to do service to the community in future.