29 NOVEMBER 2016
We are so grateful to receive more and more bookings every day! Thank you for helping us - to help others! As the number of donators is growing, we thought it would be interesting to share our daily stories and short articles of what happens inside the iCollect Clothes project – on our blog!
‘i’ on behalf of iCollect Clothes team have decided to join one of the drivers, for one day on their daily collections. i was very inspired by the drivers and their stories, so i thought it would be a great idea to meet some of the donators.
We travelled around 200km on the day – at one address we’ve spent almost an hour trying to find the correct office. It was like a maze! Hundreds of exactly the same doors! Haha
The driver told me that this happens often and it causes a delay on other addresses. This is the main reason as to why iCollect service cannot give a specific time for collections. As the driver said ‘everything can change in minutes; I can get lost, stuck in traffic or just cannot find the address and that’s it, we’re off scheduled time’.
Trying to escape from central London, delayed us even more… It took us around two hours to get to the next address. When we arrived – we found no one to open the door. So with no collected bags, we headed to the next address. We had various collection points, in different places on the day. Doors by doors changed; some left the bags outside the door, others kindly handed them out from their home. Sometimes people would open the door and point to a certain direction and then found their bags to have been stolen…
When we stopped outside a lovely house, i decided to join the driver to meet the donator. An elderly lady opened the door with the biggest smile on her face. She was very welcoming and agreed to answer a few questions for my research. She has asked to remain anonymous due to her work commitments but had agreed to share her story with us.
She said that iCollect Clothes service is very convenient, as she is elderly it’s great that she can donate of her doorstep. ‘The reason why I am so inspired to donate is because I’ve had breast cancer myself and one of the charities has helped me massively’. Just a few days after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, sadly her husbanded passed away… ‘We were married for 50 years. I was devastated and to find out I had cancer, was just too much for me to cope with. Thankfully the charity had given me so much support and helped me to get back on my feet’. The lady received daily visits by volunteers who helped her morally to handle all the pressure that came her way. ‘I believe that charities and fundraisers do a wonderful job, that’s why I always donate, when I can’.
This wonderful lady had left me thinking, how many people there must be in the world, who are as grateful as she is to charities for their work… And then I came up with a great idea…
To Be Continued…
