The Winter Project – student-led clothing collection charity

Initially started in 2015 for the Xero Drawingboard Challenge, Winter Project started within the local community and has grown across the Wellington region. The Winter Project is a is student-led at Samuel Marsden College in Wellington who collect clothing items for delivery to partner low decile schools and “Wellingtonians in need.” They are supported by their school, parents, the local community and their partnership with ANZ but impress upon the importance of the organisation being student-led. They have a weekly meeting of an hour and spend further time on independent work for the charity. Currently there are 6 members that are year 13 and 5 members that are year 11 who will begin to run the charity from next year. The students promote their own social media and have been featured by Matilda Rice and Hannah Laity.

Once the original members left school the new leadership group faced challenges. The year thirteens are now mentoring the year eleven members for succession planning, so that the year eleven girls can continue to grow the charity.

Since these challenges the group has grown significantly and now has nine dropboxes for clothes around Wellington and are looking to expand. They held a clothing drive and exceeded their goal of 2000 clothing items and have even higher goals for this year. The students have significant ideas for expansion from wanting to increase the number of boxes available to further developing their social media, further fundraising to start purchasing clothes, looking at donating to specific communities and creating new partnerships with various organisations both local and national organisations. Their overall goal would be to become nationwide.