4 December 2024
Over the past few months, our Social Day initiative has made its way from Amsterdam to Cologne, and thanks to Tom Klawun and his fellow smartclippers, it has now reached Hamburg. The group of six spent their day assisting Hanseatic Help, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing clothing, medical supplies, and much more to those living in Germany and abroad.
Hanseatic Help provides essential items and support to the homeless, refugees, low-income families, children’s homes, women’s shelters, and social counselling centres. Throughout the city, they have one location where donations are collected and processed, and three brick-and-mortar stores where those in need can gather supplies and clothing at their discretion. Along with providing aid to a wide range of groups throughout Germany, they also provide donations and supplies to countries in crisis. Currently, most of their efforts are focused on providing aid to Ukraine, Syria, and Turkey.
Our six smartclippers, Antje Rödel, Christina Sjut, Massouda Sarwari-Pumm, Sarah Peters, Alex Krause, and Tom Klawun, spent the day evaluating and sorting clothing in the men’s department. Not only did the group help sort donations from others, but they also brought their own contributions — the result of an organised effort to collect gently used clothing from smartclippers in the Hamburg office. After a long day of sifting through clothes, the team went on to complete one final task of the day — finishing a pizza. 😉
All six volunteers enjoyed a day spent giving back to their community and expressed gratitude towards their peers who donated to the cause. When reflecting on the experience, Sarah Peters, Senior Manager of Supply & Cooperations, spoke about one of her key takeaways from the day, “This work definitely showed us how important it is to donate your belongings and be more mindful about consumption as we have access to an abundance of everyday life goods such as clothes, shoes, toiletries etc. We can recommend this organisation to everyone as the threshold to support here is really low”.
Hanseatic Help is just one of the many amazing charities out there accepting and seeking volunteers to aid them in their cause, and as Tom Klawun says, “We encourage everyone to do a Social Day wherever and whenever it is possible!”
We are so proud of how our smartclip community has stepped up to the plate to give back to their communities, and we can’t wait to see where it takes us next.