suit drives

How to organise a suit drive

You can help unemployed men get back into employment by organising a suit drive at your place of work.

How to do this:

1) Ask your colleagues to bring in donations on a particular day, or throughout a particular period (e.g. Monday–Friday). Avoid quieter periods such as Christmas, summer holidays and staff events when there are fewer colleagues around.

Please email Suited & Booted once you have decided on the date of your suit drive: info@suitedbootedcentre.org.uk

2) Publicise the suit drive as much as possible in advance e.g. through the intranet, staff meetings and notices, and signage and posters, where possible. Please download and use the poster provided.

Please let your colleagues know about the work that we do in supporting our clients into work. Our clients are vulnerable and long-term unemployed (e.g. poorly housed, ex-offenders, ex-military personnel, looked-after children, in recovery from a mental health problem).

We don’t have a budget for dry-cleaning or laundering so we are very appreciative if donations are interview-ready – clean and in good condition and ready to wear.

3) Designate a collection area or areas where colleagues can drop off their donations. Collection boxes and rails may be useful for this.

4) When the suit drive is finished, please email Suited & Booted to let us know when to expect delivery.

We are a small charity and we don’t have the resources to pick up donations so we rely on your kindness and generosity to deliver or courier the donations to us.

Guidelines for donations

As we don’t have a budget for cleaning, we are very grateful if clothing is dry-cleaned or freshly laundered and ironed.

We need QUALITY clothing and footwear in every size to accommodate the needs of our clients. We are desperate for shoes and larger size suits (above chest 44”) and smaller suits (chest 38”and below). All shirt sizes are needed but in particular we are always short of shirt sizes 14, 14.5, 15 and 17 and above.

Please note that we do not take individual suit jackets or individual suit trousers.

What we need:

  • Men’s complete suits
  • Shirts
  • Ties
  • Shoes
  • Jumpers
  • Waistcoats
  • Cufflinks
  • Pocket handkerchiefs
  • Belts
  • Coats and warm jackets for winter, and hats

Additionally, we are very grateful for:

  • Suit bags, briefcases and bags including rucksacks
  • New socks and underwear
  • Toiletries

 

Download pdf poster