Monthly help with the children’s clothes swap

Every third Monday evening of the month, we organise a children’s clothes swap at NHL Stenden in Leeuwarden with a lovely group of parents and grandparents. We’re a community initiative, so everyone takes part on a voluntary basis. Our youngest volunteers are 18 years old and our oldest are around 65. It’s a lovely mix. We do this to make the children’s clothing supply chain more sustainable.

Those who can get there early will help with setting up from 4 pm/5 pm – this involves putting the tables in place and hanging up or laying out the clothes. This isn’t compulsory, though – most volunteers won’t have got back from work by then.

We often have dinner together at 5.30 pm – we take it in turns to cook (but you don’t have to if you don’t want to).

It’s important that you’re actually there by 17:55. We’ll start with a briefing, get the final preparations sorted, and then we’ll open at 18:30. Parents from Leeuwarden and the surrounding area will be coming along to swap their children’s clothes, buy second-hand baby clothes or have their children’s clothes mended for free.

We have various tasks to carry out during the exchange:

• A volunteer at check-in who welcomes people;
• Several volunteers who select which items of clothing we accept (quality check);
• Volunteers in 'the shop' to help visitors and keep everything tidy;
• Volunteers who repair children’s clothes for free;
• Volunteers at the checkout, to count the clothes and ring up baby clothes.

We close at 8.00 pm – then we tidy everything up together and help the last visitors at the till. We’ll be heading home by 9.00 pm at the latest, but if we finish earlier, we’ll leave sooner.

When would this be the right place for you?

• If you like a bit of a buzz – there are lots of visitors, so you’ll really be kept busy the whole time;
• If you’d like to help make the children’s clothing supply chain more sustainable – that’s what we’re all about: we want to keep children’s clothes in circulation locally for as long as possible amongst as many families as possible;
• If you want to select clothing, it’s important to be discerning – we want visitors to be confident that they’ll find genuine quality;
• Finally, we’re a lovely group of people; on most evenings there are about 12 of us of all ages, and everyone really does their best to make it a lovely evening.

You can read more about us at: www.hetgelelaarsje.nl. We also have an Instagram account: @hetgelelaarsje.

A friendly group of people who pull together. As a residents’ initiative, we don’t receive any funding, so we can’t, for example, reimburse any parking costs. You really have to do it because you enjoy it and believe it’s a worthwhile cause.

It would be great if you could join us on at least five Monday evenings a year – more is, of course, also welcome. Every month, we check who’s available that month, so you can decide on a case-by-case basis whether it suits you or not. We’re usually closed during the school holidays.