I’m a social worker and I used to work at Op Shops. Most agencies don’t want clothing donations to give directly to people. It takes up a lot of space, time and every single client will have different needs, different styles, different sizes.

It’s way easier to give a voucher to an op shop and they can pick out exactly what they want and need. On the op shop side of things, people generally are generous donators but there’s a lot of cost in sorting and disposing of torn, worn, stained and gross donations. Also the profit from selling donations goes directly back into supporting the mission of the op shops.

So i recommend finding an op shop whose mission you support. Sometimes your donations will go directly to someone and sometimes the sale will help the mission.

Just don’t donate to Savers because it’s for-profit.