Why We Stopped Shipping Donated Clothing Overseas

Sending a container of coats across an ocean feels generous. It is also, in most cases, the least useful thing a donor organization can do, and it can quietly wreck a local trade.

A container costs several thousand dollars to move. That same money, spent with tailors and traders in the receiving town, buys more clothing, in the right sizes and the right climate, and pays local wages while doing it.

Worse, a flood of free garments undercuts the market stalls that clothe most of the town in normal times. We have watched that happen, and the recovery takes years.

So our clothing program now works in two halves. Donated garments are distributed locally, where the logistics are short and the need is immediate. Cash donations buy clothing near the point of need, from businesses that stay open after we leave.

It is a less photogenic model. It is a considerably better one.