After losing their community and retail space at the end of 2021, Pass it on Clothing & Co. is calling on the Parramatta community for support to help those experiencing homelessness.
Founded five years ago by Chris Vagg and Olga Puga, Pass it on Clothing & Co. is a Sydney-based social enterprise supporting men and women who find themselves without a roof over their heads.
Every Wednesday in Parramatta at Prince Alfred Square, the organisation provides “clothing and connection” to the city’s homeless community.
“Servicing Parramatta was a decision we made a few years back simply because of the amount of people who were sleeping rough in the western suburbs,” Mr Vagg said.
Since the start of the pandemic, Mr Vagg believes homelessness in Parramatta has become 100 per cent worse.
“When we started five years ago it was very city centric and what you’ll see now is homelessness bleeding into suburbs that you’ve never seen before,” he said.
Following the loss of its shop at the end of 2021, Pass it on Clothing & Co. has struggled to provide more items of clothing to Parramatta’s growing homeless community.
“The Parramatta space has grown so big that some of our homeless friends don’t come to engage anymore, simply because it’s too hectic. They don’t feel comfortable and there’s not much we can do about it because the scale of the problem has grown so much,” Mr Vagg.
Pass it on Clothing & Co. has since created a gofundme page to help raise donations. The social enterprise also run a corporate program called The 100 Club, which offers engagement opportunities for businesses through options such as subscription clothing bins.
“Everyone has got excess clothing they no longer need, so rather than have the threat of that ending up in landfill it’s far better to repurpose it and actually have a positive impact on someone doing it tough,” he said.
To find out how you can assist Pass it on Clothing & Co. now and into the future, visit http://www.facebook.com/passitonclothing.
Ellie Busby is a news reporter for Western Sydney Publishing Group. A graduate of the University of Hertfordshire and Western Sydney University, she is a journalism Major. Ellie has worked with Universal Media, The Cova Project and for a range of other organisations. In 2024, Ellie was named Young Writer of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.