“I’m quite overwhelmed; when I came in here, I never expected such a huge amount of clothes,” said Werner.
“We’ve done this many times, but this is definitely the biggest amount of clothes we have ever received.”
Within less than four weeks, pupils donated a total of more than 400 small bags of clothing.
Sharol Naidoo, the values coordinator at Willowmoore, headed the project via the Interact Club, a school-based community service club, which has been run by her for the past eight years.
Younitiate works exclusively in Mogobo, Etwatwa, where it sells the donated clothes very cheaply, from a mobile secondhand shop, and uses the profit mainly to fund an independent school it founded in Mogobo.
“We purposely don’t give away the clothes, we found that handouts create dependency,” said Werner.
At present the school consists only of Grade R, but Younitiate hopes to add a grade to it every year.