Did You Know
The average North American discards 31 kilos of clothing and textiles each and every year.
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Did You Know
The average pair of jeans travels 32,000 kilometres, from the cotton fields of Georgia, to factories in China, to the stores in North America - before you even put them on.
The Clothing Bank Program
The following will explain how the clothing bank program works, why it works and who it benefits.
How it works
Organizations choose to participate in the program as a fundraiser. There is no cost to the organization. The clothing banks, the collection of the clothing, the processing and the distribution of the clothing are 100% paid for by Trans-Continental Textile Recycling. The clothing banks carry the logo/name of the organization and the charities are paid monthly on a per pound basis for the clothing/textiles collected. All responsibility for clothing bank capital cost, maintenance, decaling and collection is borne by TCTR.
Why it works.
Fundraising is a costly business for organizations. It costs money and time to raise money, and requires the co-ordination of a team to come up with a plan and execute it. 100% of the money raised by TCTR from its clothing collection bins can be spent on programs. TCTR specializes in the collection and recycling of textiles and generates substantial amounts of funding on an ongoing basis and at no cost for charitable organisations, so that the charitable organisations can concentrate on what they do best. This is a programme with no end date. Time and energy spent on sourcing new streams of revenue are freed up so organizations can get on with helping the community.
Currently 20 charitable organizations benefit from TCTR clothing collection banks,
( letters from some of our partners). If you would like to join us, send us an email.
Who it benefits.
The benefits extend from the donor who discards what they no longer want, the site sponsor who is happy to be sponsoring an organization they support and facilitating a service for their customers, and the local charitable organizations who receive much needed funding and name recognition for their organization. The employees of TCTR benefit, as do their suppliers and customers, ultimately the environment benefits from our complete recycling process that ensures zero textile waste and all the employment and processing remains in Canada. But the real winners are the children, teenagers, adults and families who access the many programs offered by the organizations, many of whom have built up programs dependant on TCTR funding.
You may recognize the larger organizations and know their work in the community, but we also support the small organizations who struggle with name recognition and lack of government funding, or organizations who while supplied with government funding cannot access that funding for needed programmes, such as the New Westminster School District, which uses their revenue from the program to provide food for their school children who are not getting the nutrition they need to build for success. The Deaf Children's Society of B.C. uses revenue from it's program to increase literacy among their clients, provide sign language instruction to community members, opportunities for continuing education for staff and to cover transportation costs for families who travel from all corners of B.C. to their centre in Burnaby.