CORNWALL, Ontario – The City of Cornwall’s annual clothes drive initiative, Give a Shirt week, is returning this April, but in a first, will be back again in October meaning that for the first time, there will be two Give a Shirt weeks in one year.
The first week runs from April 19 to 23 and the second week will be from Oct. 18 to 22.
To participate in Give a Shirt week, residents are asked to leave out their gently used clothing or footware with their garbage, in a separate and marked bag.
Collected clothing will be distributed to local thrift stores.
The City of Cornwall offers the following tips on how to participate:
- Gather up any used clothing, linens, and shoes you are no longer using.
- Put them in a garbage bag and close it well.
- Label the bag “give a shirt.”
- Put the bag out on your regular collection day (in the morning, please) a few feet away from your garbage and recycling.
During the current stay-at-home order due to the pandemic, the City of Cornwall will be storing the donated clothing at the landfill, as thrift stores currently are not accepting donations. The clothing will be stored, but not thrown away; simply kept for safe keeping for the time being.
Give a Shirt week has been held annually for the past three years. The last Give a Shirt week held in October of 2020 generated more than 27,000 pounds of clothes that were collected for local thrift stores.
“We were blown away by the total in 2020,” said Dave Kuhn, Waste Management Supervisor. “That’s 27,000 pounds that’s not going to the landfill.”
“The total also shone a light on how “fast fashion” leads to a significant amount of textile waste,” reads a statement from the City of Cornwall.
The city offers the following tips to reduce textile waste:
- Buy high-quality items that will last.
- Consider shopping at thrift stores or vintage shops, like Echo Trends, DG Vintage, and our partners listed above.
- Repair clothes when you can, share them with friends, and use them as rags when they reach the end of their lift.
