Grassroots Clothing (SC048810) 2023 to 2024
Yearly Report
While Grassroots continues to make progress within the third sector in Edinburgh, we will find that staying small is a bonus but can also be limiting. Our two dedicated and hard-working members of staff (15 hours per week) are utilising their time well by dividing the week into specific activities. Monday is making and taking referrals, sorting and steaming all new donations from the week previous. Wednesdays are dealing with the suit drive donations and, sorting the useful from the unwanted, then redistributing the excess to other charities in Edinburgh and networking and Friday's are a combination of fittings and social media updates.
This is all resulted in greater efficiency when delivering a city-wide service on very limited hours. Our socials are well utilised and attract new views and activity on a regular ongoing basis.
We continue to be part of the circular economy in Edinburgh, distributing excess clothing and other stock such as hygiene products to other charities and saving textiles going to landfill.
Our Trustees, though small remain in the picture for development and ongoing support to staff and contributed ideas and input that contributes to our overall success and being recognised as a service of choice for disadvantaged men in the city.
Successes/Gains
Referrals have maintained a steady flow and continually average 10 fitting per month, this may seem low, but when only one day per week is allocated to this, it does keep both staff occupied and they are satified with the amount. The numbers also increase from this and have reached 18 per month on occasions.
We continue to be a service of choice in the city, as there is no other charity solely targeting disadvantaged men in the city with a view to supporting their journey into training, volunteering, placements and employment.
Negatives
As always, at the top of this list is funding. We constantly survive on the smallest of shoestring budgets that allow us to pay wages and storage and with any additional funds we can buy shoes, when needed and personal hygiene products. Sourcing 2 to 3 year funding is difficult, though it is out there, we seem unlucky, perhaps due to misconceptions that we are some kind of clothing only service and not recognising the
self-worth, pride and personal presentation that comes with looking and feeling good at a job interview.
Our intended project with Edinburgh prison (Saughton) has not been as successful as we would have anticipated, but we feel this is more to do with the internal processes of the prison as opposed to our desire to support those residents' leaving detention. Forward planning may look at identify support organisations that deal with ex-offenders and building stronger links with them.
Branching out
The initial concept of Grassroots Clothing was to support a journey towards employment, however over the years we have been contacted by organisations such as Streetworks, Shelter and other homeless organisations to ask if we can support non job ready client in different ways. We have always had a no postcode no bad referral policy and have honoured these requests, which included access to clothing to attend funerals and to attend court. We now make all referrers aware thatw we are happy to take such referrals but with a caveat that interviews take the priority for us. We recognised many years ago that no everyone is job ready and as a result changed our process to accept non job ready clients, in the hope that in time they will be able to use the interview clothes issued to them to attend either a job interview, volunteering opportunity or training option.
2023 to 2024 Referrals
| 2024 Referrals | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Month | weight | Referrals | Post out’s |
| Nov-23 | 46.7 | 18 | 0 |
| Dec-23 | 20.0 | 7 | 0 |
| Jan-24 | 35.9 | 12 | 0 |
| Feb-24 | 40.2 | 13 | 0 |
| Mar-24 | 29.7 | 10 | 0 |
| Apr-24 | 25.7 | 10 | 0 |
| May-24 | 36.8 | 11 | 2 |
| Jun-24 | 32.0 | 11 | 0 |
| Jul-24 | 26.2 | 7 | 2 |
| Aug-24 | 33.4 | 11 | 0 |
| Sep-24 | 23.8 | 8 | 0 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct-24 | 35.4 | 11 | 0 |
| Nov-24 | 27.2 | 11 | 0 |
| Dec-24 | 23.4 | 8 | 0 |
| Totals |
436.4KGs | 148 |
2 |
– Co Founder 30/08/2025
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