It is estimated that 5.5million adults in the UK cannot afford the cost of clothing, while 10,000 items of clothing go into UK landfill every 5 minutes.
Sharewear's mission is to provide free-of-charge clothing choices to economically disadvantaged adults and children in the East Midlands and surrounding regions.
The charity distributes the clothing using a combination of a referral system for individuals and an outreach service for organisations.
Groundbreaking ReLived Scheme and Franchise Initiative
In 2024 the Randal Charitable Foundation provided significant multi-year funding to enable regional and national growth of the organisation, and in particular, their ReLived scheme and franchise initiative.
The Community Sharewear franchise initiative is designed to help its pioneering business model grow into new regions throughout the UK, which will continue to help support the most disadvantaged and vulnerable to access education and employment opportunities.
As franchisees pay an initial fee and an annual retainer fee, and ReLived subscribers pay an annual subscription fee, both of these initiatives will eventually fund their own personnel and enable the anticipated national growth of the charitable enterprise.
Benefiting the State and Wider Society
Sharewear’s outreach to prisons and hospitals is a strong case study on how pressure on Probation Services and the NHS can be reduced, by equipping people leaving prison with adequate clothing to begin to rebuild their lives. It also enables predominantly older patients to rehabilitate more quickly and return home - freeing up beds and reducing waiting times and waiting lists.
In terms of direct referrals into their centre, poor mental health is a common denominator in a majority of cases. This is because clothing deprivation is both a cause and effect of worsened mental health, and often leads to people losing employment and their livelihoods as a consequence.
By providing free-of-charge clothing choices to people experiencing poor mental health, their work reduces pressure on overstretched mental health services, and also keeps people in work, enabling them to contribute to the economy.
The longer-term public benefit comes from factors such as children achieving 100% attendance at school, which improves their qualifications and future employment prospects. It also helps adults take up better job opportunities, or retain their job; as well as supports mothers fleeing domestic violence, as they are able to make a fresh start.
Award Winning
Sharewear’s first session was in March 2014 and they became a Registered Charity in November 2016. Since then the charity has grown from being completely volunteer-led for the first 4 years to having a number of employees, who work alongside a dedicated team of volunteers from a variety of backgrounds - many of whom are people who have used the service and asked to join and support others.
As of March 2024, over 250 organisations are referring into the charity’s Nottingham Client Access Centre and dozens of organisations in the East and West Midlands, South Yorkshire and North London order bulk outreach deliveries. This model enables the charity to support 25,000 to 30,000 people per year.
Sharewear has since won various awards, including being named one of the top 100 Changemaker organisations by The Big Issue in 2020, and in December 2021 their Founder and CEO Louise Cooke was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Business Administration by Nottingham Trent University.
In January 2024 The Big Issue recognised Louise in her own right, naming her as one of the Top 100 Changemakers over the last year for her work on helping to reassert the Right to Clothing.
