20 August 2024
The upper level of the Trinity Methodist Church’s sanctuary is full of boxes and multi-coloured bags. Stuck behind the back rows, there are too many for them to stay hidden. Weekly hundreds if not thousands of clothing items arrive at the Church in the Yorkshire North & East Methodist District. Almost as many redistributed but not quite.
Despite how many families use the initiative, it is a never-ending stream of donations to the point that the upper level of the sanctuary is also used to store bags – the scale of the project deeply impressed Revd Gill Newton and Deacon Kerry Scarlett, the 2023 President and Vice-President of the Conference, when they visited the District.
The Re-Uniform project in Hull started in 2019 led by Susie Steel and Emma Hardy, Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle. The first steps were messy with several local churches keeping items until Trinity Methodist Church offered to centralize the storage. Like in Haxby and Wigginton, the project is in part to reduce the waste in landfills but mostly to help families. “Many are relieved not to have to worry about buying school uniforms,” explains Vikki Williams, RE-uniform project coordinator.
Even if RE-uniform is centred on school uniforms, the team keeps the general clothing donated for special requests or to help refugees.
“We started by asking for uniforms for our local schools. As the word got out, then we got more and more school uniforms, generic items, and it snowballed from there.”
Louise, one of the first volunteers.Four years after it started, RE-uniform is now well established and well organised with dozens of volunteers who collect items, sort and organise them, sometimes even delivering upon requests. The collection points are in supermarkets, health centres, a local hospital and even a warehouse.
There is a core of seven committed volunteers who come weekly, but many more come from time to time or regularly deliver clothing items, like those schoolgirls who collected items from their schools, other churches who signpost Re-Uniform to people they meet, or the choir members who regularly deliver bags of clothing. A network of volunteers created itself around Re-Uniform. “This is an amazing community outreach project, highlighting God's doing,” adds Deacon Ali Hyde.
There was a talk about whether or not they needed a warehouse to keep all the items but the congregation wants RE-uniform to be part of its mission and, by extension, keep the items within the building. “It is not just providing a necessity, it is actually missional for us,” explains Ali. The team wants people coming to Re-Uniform feel like it is a gift and not a stigma.