Donating Bras That Don’t Fit - Again

I can’t believe it - I just invested in January in a few new bras, and now my body has decided to suddenly shed some of those unwanted extra pounds.

This has left me happy and frustrated at the same time.

I suppose I could take my new lingerie and sell it on eBay. (Wonder how much you can get for a used bra?) However, I suspect I am either going to have to give it away or find a charity to take it.

Unfortunately, donating a bra is not all that simple. Seems that North American charities have decided that making use of second-hand lingerie is “unsanitary” (or something like that). While this could apply to underwear, I have to wonder how bras could be dangerous. Skin cells? A bit of dried breast milk?

Has no one thought of laundering?

In any case, I did find a fabulous bra charity drive called BreastTalk in the UK. With donated bras, they have managed to support:

  1. Homeless women, by supplying bras to them.
  2. Student Charity Workers who also received bras to take to third world countries for distribution directly to local women.
  3. A Girl Guide group who wanted to know about the different styles of bras and the importance of wearing the correct size.

In addition, BreastTalk sent some bras that were past their prime to BCR Global Textiles who paid £1 per kilo of garments. The money was then sent directly to the Breast Cancer Campaign in Britain to fund research into this deadly disease.

All this sounded great - but the cost of shipping my bras overseas is a bit more than I’d like to pay.

So, I kept searching for places to donate bras. I found another great campaign running out of New Zealand - but again, there’s that pesky overseas shipping.

I think I’m going to settle on donating to the local Salvation Army or Goodwill depot. Apparently, if they can’t sell them directly in the stores, they will bundle them up and sell them to other agencies who recycle clothing.

A note to my readers: Although agencies will take panties in donation, many don’t use these items but simply sell them as rags. After seeing yesterday’s celebrity news, I suspect that Jennifer Garner has a few pairs she could donate. However, given the holes, they’ll have to be used as rags. (Sure glad that there weren’t paparazzi following me around when I was a new mother with a baby at home. I’m sure underwear with holes wouldn’t have been my only faux pas.)