Clothing Swap

BETH MILLER AND MONICA BEHRENBRUCH, SACRISTANS (YEAR 12)

In May we held the first ever St Aidan’s Senior School Clothing Swap with the help of our wonderful group Anam Cara, our coordinator Ms Forristal and Reverend Gillian. Over the first five weeks of Term 2, we collected clothes that were no longer used or wanted from the student and staff body.

We were incredibly excited to welcome Kate Littmann-Kelly from the Thread Together Project, who was our inspiration for the event. Thread Together gathers unsold retail clothing and distributes it to those who would not normally have access to such items. All money we raised on the day was donated to the Thread Together Project.

The main focus of this event was to bring greater awareness to fashion waste and create ways to promote ethical fashion. We ensured that all the equipment we used on the day we already had or could be reused/recycled to minimise our own waste from the event. This included Anam Cara making our own bunting from paper rather than buying decorations.

A special thanks to Mr MacDonald who helped us to design and print the special ‘Anam Cara Tokens’ which were used during the afternoon to ‘purchase’ clothing. We were also so blessed to have an Anam Cara bake sale (and the baking was delicious) and a performance by Paganini Strings, conducted by Mr Bonetti.

When we started this journey, we had no idea how well this idea would pan out. We were quite worried that no one would bring anything, or that no one would show up… but the response was overwhelming. The sheer amount of clothing that was brought in was incredible, and so we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for supporting our idea with such gusto.