Starting the after-party with a big impact!
With nature unleashing its wrath early this year, several regions within and around NSW were severely impacted by flooding - support was essential and an emerging grassroots community, situated in Evans Head NSW, answered the call.
The Power of Community
A Flood Relief Pop Up Shop was built in Evans Head to allow flood-affected residents free access to high quality pre-loved clothing. The remaining donations were distributed to those in need.
The Evans Head Flood Relief Pop Up Shop
Despite widespread distribution, the community held a huge amount of clothing which were unfortunately not wearable. This led to a crisis within a crisis as the community didn’t want unusable donations to end up in their already overflowing landfills.
The question arose: how and where should the unusable clothing be disposed?
At after, we value giving back to the community. Hence it was quite natural for us to help out when the Evans Head community reached out to us. Currently, we’re working with Rena Frohman (a community member) to organize transport for 1000+ kilograms of unwearable clothing from NSW to Victoria without compensation. Once received, the packaged unusable clothing will be sent to India for recycling.
Clothing being sorted at the Evans Head Community Storage
“It’s been an amazing journey and we have learned so much about community spirit, textile waste, and the diversity of social enterprises, universities and local governments who are trying to find solutions to an incredibly complex problem,” says Rena.
We need your help!
Everything has been under process since February and we are grateful for all contributions made towards the flood relief initiatives. However, we require your help! We are in need of free transport (one semi-trailer) for the textiles from Evans Head NSW to Melbourne. We hope to execute this in early-August 2022.
The video below briefly covers our collaboration with the Evans Head Community.
At times like these we must come together as a community through collaboration and empowerment. If you know of anyone who can help us, please reach out to us at hello@after.net.au or Rena herself at 0432 156 347 or renaesl@hotmail.com.