Our client, The Haven Night Shelter for the homeless, briefed us to generate awareness and donations on a limited budget.

We needed to bring the haves and have-nots together to break through deep-set stereotypes, while making donating easy, and receiving dignified. By meaningfully demystifying the homeless culture, we’d get people to donate now, and in the future. We targeted two distinct audiences – young people who haven’t considered donating; and those who want to donate, but aren’t sure where, how, or are weary of the unknown.

Introducing The Street Store. The world’s first rent-free, premises-free, free “pop-up clothing store” for the homeless, stocked by donations.

We called for donations online, utilising the best of two platforms – Twitter for its immediacy, sharability, and scope; and Facebook for its event hosting capabilities.

Using our limited budget we printed interactive, die-cut posters, attached them to fences in public areas – turning the sidewalk into a “store”. Donors hung up donations, then the homeless chose clothing they liked – many for the first time.

Within two days of calling for donations, we trended nationally, were on prominent South African blogs, websites, news stations, TV and radio. Bono’s One Organisation, Huffington Post, Trendhunter, Good, Fast Company and hundreds more shared our story – generating PR in excess of R27million off a R5000 budget.

We’ve clothed over 3500 homeless in South Africa alone. Since homelessness is universal, we went open-source. To date 121 people downloaded translated posters to host a Street Store in their communities.

A week before our first event we called for donations on online. The store ran from 6:30am – 7:00pm in an area where the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ cross paths daily.

Each event taught us something new: that we needed more men’s clothing, for example. However, the format didn’t change. As they arrived, donors were shown how to hang up their donations in the men’s or women’s section. Our shop assistants – Haven residents who gained work experience, and fieldworkers who helped educate the homeless – gave them a dignified shopping experience. The homeless queue up and browse the store to choose 3 items and an accessory of their choice.

First: 14.01.14, Somerset Road, Cape Town

Second: 30.01.14, The Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town.

Third: Publicly hosted, 21.02.14, District Six, Cape Town.

Forth & Fifth Street Stores: 9.03.14, self-initiated in Woodstock, Cape Town; one in Vieux Marché aux Grains, Brussels.

Within 2 days of calling for donations on social media, we were trending, we were on prominent South African and international blogs, news, radio and television. This generated PR in excess of R27million off of a R5000 budget. In South Africa alone we have been able to clothe over 2000 homeless people and donate van-loads of excess clothing to The Haven. Since going open-source, we’ve had 121+ applications to host stores globally and they’ve already begun popping up around the world, from Cape Town to Brussels to Spain.