Donate to our Community Wardrobes!
Our community wardrobes provide free gender-affirming clothing for young people in a safe and supportive environment. You'll find one at each of our centres! If you'd like to donate, we welcome clothing, new or quality makeup and skincare, and gender-affirming items like binders. Check out the guide below for more details!
How to donate to us
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Tāmaki Makaurau Clothing donations are exclusively collected by Common (previously Koha Apparel). To donate clothing, you can either:
— Make an appointment to drop off your donations in person
— Courier your items by purchasing a wardrobe clear-out kit for $19
To help cover the costs associated with keeping clothing in circulation, Common kindly requests a $10 donation per donation, roughly the size of a reusable supermarket tote. Larger volumes attract the fee again.
Please review the following guidelines prior to donating.
All clothing must be freshly laundered
In addition to clothing, we accept shoes, bags and accessories such as hats, belts, et cetera
Minor defects like broken zippers, missing buttons and torn seams are fine; we repair these
Shoes must have their laces
Donations must be counted before dropping off or sending. Please note your garment count either on the outside of your bag paper, if paper or on a note inside
Items we do not accept:
Clothing with permanent stains
Bedding such as pillows, duvet covers, sheets, tablecloths, et cetera
Costumes or fancy dress items
Onesies
Dressing gowns
Used underwear, socks or swimwear. Unworn garments, new with tags, are accepted
Costume jewelry
Sunglasses (unless new)
Fabric scraps
Common processes requests from our team based on community demand. Your clothing donations contribute to the wider inventory held by Common. Your donations might not all come to us, but they will clothe other people in need.
For further information on Common, please visit their website.
We thank Common for their generosity in helping us keep our community wardrobes running.
RY still accepts donations directly for new or good quality used make-up and skincare products.
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Clothing donations can be made in Taranaki. You’ll need to Email the regional coordinators to arrange a time as they spend time in the community and aren’t always at the drop-in centre. The Community Wardrobe is free and available, just flick the regional coordinators an email to make sure someones there!
Click here to Email Taranaki. -
Bay of Plenty donations are also collected by Common. Please refer to the donation guide under Auckland’s. Feel free to contact the regional coordinator if you have any questions.
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Clothing donations can be made to the Northland wardrobe. You’ll need to Email the regional coordinators to arrange a time as they spend time in the community and aren’t always at the drop-in centre. The Community Wardrobe is free and available, just flick the regional coordinators an email to make sure someones there!
Click here to Email Northland.
What can I donate?
Clothing:
We have a community wardrobe in Auckland, Taranaki and Bay of Plenty. This is free to all our service users and other Rainbow young people so that they can get gender affirming clothing in a safe and supportive place. If you would like to donate clothing items, please read the guide below on how you can donate to each region. Please ensure the items are in good quality when donating.
Binders:
We love donations of second-hand binders!
Many members of our Rainbow communities find binding freeing, relieving and necessary. However, not everyone is in a position to purchase their own binder.
If you have a binder that you no longer need, we would love to give it a new home with one of the many young people we support.
Makeup & Skincare:
We welcome donations of new or good quality used makeup and skincare products. Makeup and skincare are often expensive and it might not be safe for our young people to access these products on their own.
Please ensure the items are not expired or damaged and are in good condition. If you are unsure, consider if you would give this item away to a friend. If yes, then we would love to have it!