Lost Stock Box

[purchase] Ages ago – I mean at least two or three months ago – when the global impact of the virus was just beginning to emerge, I ordered a Lost Stock Box. At the time, it was a new charity, founded purely to support garment workers in Bangladesh. Stores were cancelling their orders left, right and centre leaving millions of clothing items with no home and thousands of workers with no work and therefore no means to support their families. Although I’d donated to causes closer to home I wanted to do something wider as well and Lost Stock was the perfect thing, the idea being to receive £70 worth of clothes (3 garments, or 5 for kids) destined for landfill for £35 with the £35 being used to support a worker and their family for a week with hygiene and food essentials.

I don’t think Lost Stock, which works with the SAJIDA foundation (HERE), had any idea that their scheme would be as popular as it turned out to be. So, from a 6 week delivery estimate, a pivot from boxes to bags, and various hold ups along the way, at last the Lost Stock is being delivered and mine arrived yesterday. I’m honestly thrilled – particularly with the dress in the main picture which I was prancing about in within seconds of opening.

There’s an element of risk – I know a couple of people who don’t like any of their things despite there being options such as plains or patterns as well as size and gender preference (and now kid’s boxes). There is definitely a bit of luck involved but the way I saw it was that the donation was one I wanted to make regardless so anything I liked was a bonus and anything I didn’t like could be donated on elsewhere. So, I received the dress (love!), and navy and white t-shirt slightly cropped (love) and a frilly summer top in cornflower blue (don’t love). The summer top will go to a new home but the others will be worn and worn. Everything has been re-labelled with the Lost Stock logo so you never quite know what shops they were destined for but they have a welcome home with me so it doesn’t matter. Lucy and Mr BBB have both got boxes on order and now I’m excited to see theirs. Shipping is to UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia but it’s been such a success – despite setbacks – that I am sure it will open out to more countries. If you order, you may like nothing or you may like everything but the thing you will like is the entrepreneurial spirit that rose for the good from fast thinking and a desire not to see $2 billion worth of clothes disappear while families went hungry. It’s a very positive thing to do, I think. Find Lost Stock HERE.