Personal shopping experience for the less fortunate

Homeless and less fortunate members of the community had a chance to walk through a makeshift store this past weekend and pick out clothes for themselves.

Wings of Inspiration Care Centre in partnership with Horizon View Shopping Centre gave numerous members of the centre a shopping experience to remember during their Threads Up initiative on January 27.

Holly Nemathithi, from the shopping centre, explained people often take shopping for granted, going to a store and picking out what they want. She mentioned the purpose of the initiative is to give these community members the chance to have a dignified shopping experience where they can choose what they want and in which size, instead of just receiving a bag with clothes where they have to take what they get.

“We wanted to give them the freedom of choice. Everyone is so excited for the experience,” stated Holly.

She noted aside from clothing, each person also received toiletries. There was also a section for children, which included toys. People could also choose books and shoes and even winter clothes. She noted they received quite a few pieces of men’s clothing which they are very grateful for as it is rather rare to have men’s clothing donated.

Each shopper also got a personal shopper to walk through the store with them and pick out what they wanted.

She added that they took everyone around the store a second time so they can have another chance at picking something they like and everything that was left over will be distributed to the various Wings of Inspiration Care Centres.

She said that they received more than 1 000 pieces of clothing – all donated by members of the community. They also had a soup kitchen where the people could get chicken stew with rice and a cold drink with something sweet.