Surrey Hills Baby Clothes Library

Surrey Hills Baby Clothes Library

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About our cause

Reducing Landfill

Keeping money with families to make memories 

We are two mums (Rachel & Nicky) who are seeking to encourage reuse of baby clothes in Surrey and in doing so reduce our impact on the environment and save money for parents!

Surrey Hills Baby clothes library is a community initiative, newly formed as a CIC, established by two Guildford mums, with the vision of reducing landfill and allowing families to put funds into lasting memories with their children rather than purchasing fast fashion clothing, which their babies and children wear for such a short period of time.

SHBCL was established in March 2019 and began with a couple of boxes of preloved clothing that families could borrow and return when their children had grown out of them. Up to this point this has been undertaken completely voluntarily with every donation going straight towards purchasing further boxes. A staggering 150 boxes have been requested to date – exclusive of donations made to the premature baby units, Guildford Refugee aid, Shooting stars and Guildford Baby Bank.

We currently hold within our homes 40, 20-litre boxes prepared and ready to be exchanged by existing hirers or borrowed by new hirers; not including the large amount of clothing that has no box to go into and is therefore not yet added onto our system. That is 3360 litres of clothing, in boxes ready to go, saved from landfill and loved by families from Liphook to Addlestone. With the cost-of-living crisis upon us, we have seen double the amount of boxes borrowed in the last four months, compared with our first 12 months.

The processing for conventional textiles requires around 100-150 liters of water for every kilogram of fiber (Mogavero, 2020), our average box is 18 kg. SHBCL saves an average of 2250 litres of water per box, estimating that 193,500 litres of water have been saved since our project began. 

With further figure breakdowns available for gender and ages requests.

We received on average of 2-5 offers of preloved baby and toddler clothing per day, with further offers of baby toys, cots, high chairs and more – of which we sadly have to decline due to space.

The next stages; as two mums with small children of our own, we have reached capacity in the existing format with time (due to working) and space.

Our vision for SHBCL is to move boxes out of our homes and hold them in a storage facility nearby. The real dream would be to have an exchange space – but small steps at a time. Contact has been made with an independent storage company who have offered us a fantastic opportunity to use their storage facility for just £8.20 per week, with the offer of collecting the boxes from our homes and (within reason) delivering boxes to our homes for collection or allowing their facilities to be used as a collection point.

The feedback from our work has been incredible and tells us that this is wanted and needed in our community (and beyond).  

 

We offer boxes of baby clothes from newborn to 24 months to borrow.

Boxes come in the following sizes for each sex:

Newborn/0-1 month

0-3 months

3-6 months

6-9 months

9-12 months

12-18 months

18-24 months

BORROWING BOXES We provide a large box (circa 35-48 litres in size) of preloved clothes for you to borrow for as long as your little one requires. Once you need the next size up, simply contact us and we will arrange for you to swap for the next size up. We ask for a deposit of £20 when you start borrowing, which is returned when you've finished hiring boxes. We do make a suggested donation of £5 per box hired but this is just a recommendation (more is always welcome). This donation goes to purchasing more boxes and running the library. Each box contains a mixture of items including vests, trousers/leggings, tops, jumpers and sometimes a coat, item of swimwear and a sleep bag. (These can also be requested if your box does not contain one). If you gain items whilst using the service and wish to donate them pass them to us in a bag alongside your box when you return it. We are mums and understand that clothes get ruined, stained, marked and so on, so do not feel any obligation to replace items, but do identify what has been damaged on the list provided and pop it back in the box. Sadly, we cannot deliver and collect boxes (unless we happen to be passing you) as we do this voluntarily, but we'll always do our best to aid anyone wanted to rent a box. We are based in North Guildford (Stoughton and Westborough) but provide boxes to anyone. Please note that this service is for ALL within the community; we are working hard to ensure this service is available to anyone from any walk of life; we will be working with a number of groups aiming to reduce our impact on the world as well as Mums groups and community organisations. Should you wish to hire one of our boxes, please fill in the form on the link below.

https://form.jotform.com/surreyhillsbabyclotheslibrary/surrey-hills-baby-clothes-library- ‘

'Amazing variety of clothing items to suit many tastes too. Each item is in excellent condition and some are brand new. The accessories are also spot on! Thank you for the genuinely genius idea. Can’t wait for the next size up’

‘A great way of saving money and reducing environmental impact. I currently have a 6-9 month box and there is so much in there including clothes for all seasons, sleeping bags and bibs. Thank you so much - I love that I don’t need to buy clothes that will only be used for a matter of weeks!’

‘This is a fantastic idea and I'm so glad I came across it. It has saved me so much money and time that I would have spent looking for clothes otherwise. There are loads of clothes in each box and it makes much more sense than buying new, especially in the early days when little ones grow out of their clothes so quickly! It's much better for the environment too thank you for all that you do x’

Next draw prizes

£25,000 jackpot

Next draw

1d 21h 5m

Sat 28 December 2024

Draw results

£25,000 Jackpot

4 5 8 3 4 3
  • Winner! Ms L (Woking) Won £25.00!
  • Winner! Mrs F (GODALMING) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Ms R (Guildford) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mx P (GUILDFORD) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr I (GUILDFORD) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr W (GUILDFORD) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Miss B (GODALMING) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr H (LEATHERHEAD) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr K (Guildford) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mrs M (Epsom) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mrs M (GUILDFORD) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr M (Guildford) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Ms T (ALDERSHOT) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr M (Guildford) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Ms B (FARNHAM) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr D (GUILDFORD) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Miss G (Guildford) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Ms H (Guildford) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr C (Aldershot) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr M (WOKING) Won 3 extra tickets!
  • Winner! Mr M (GUILDFORD) Won 3 extra tickets!

Mx S was selected at random and won a £3,000 Christmas cash bonus

Sat 21 Dec 2024

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