Helping put a smile on peoples faces

When we began to give out free school uniforms here, we were inundated with requests.
We used various means to communicate that we had them, local schools, local newspapers, freecycle and freegle and also word of mouth.

It took off in a big way and very quickly.
We lugged bin bags to coffee mornings, we laid them out on the front of our houses on a dry day.

Our aim was that no child should feel excluded or be bullied for lack of a decent clean school uniform, we also wanted to put a smile on a parents face and just ease the burden even if it was a temporary fix.

We soon realised that not only did people appreciate the help with uniforms but the felt comfortable enough to approach us rather than say the headteacher of the school to ask for help, after all we were just like them so the gap between school and parents with difficulties was bridged by us, that wasn`t something we had anticipated would happen but it was fine with us that it worked that way.

Parents would call for uniforms and while with us would ask for all manner of advice and we would signpost them in the direction of help or would make a phone call for them.

We had headteachers call us to ask for help and one that stays with me is the call we recieved to say that some of the children in this heads school not only didnt have uniforms but also didnt have any underwear, yes right here in the UK there are children that go to school but they dont have underwear.
We did have some donations which people had given when recieving their uniforms so we went and purchased a variety of both boys and girls underwear in various sizes and we took them to the school were the head cried and so did we!!!!!!!!!

We have also had occasions were a parent has had a child return from school with holes in their shoes so we go and buy the shoes for the child, we never give money out to anyone and they have all to date been fine with that.

We have also found that the people we help always want to pay if forward and so many of them have done so, that is a wonderful thing to see when a family who has struggled then help another family with an act of kindness.