Our client, The Haven Night Shelter, help reintegrate the homeless into functional society by offering them rehabilitation, support, and shelter. They asked us to help drive awareness and bring in donations on a minimal budget.

We needed to target two new, distinct audiences of donors – young people who haven’t considered donating before; and those who want to donate, but aren’t sure where or how, or are weary of the unknown.

Instead of a sterile clothing drive, we wanted to bring the haves and have-nots together to break through deep-set stereotypes, while giving the homeless a dignified shopping experience.

In this simple, interactive way, we made it both easy and safe to donate, and dignified to receive, while bring two ends of society together. The Street Store isn’t permanent, as this would create reliance that 'The Haven' doesn’t believe in, but rather pop-ups in whatever community is in need.

Found entirely on the street, the look and feel is simple, raw and true to the environment. And just like 'The Haven', it gives dignity to those who had none.

By making our files open-source, anyone globally can host an initiative to help the homeless in their community.

The Haven struggle to bring in donations to clothe their 120 residents. Without budget for large-scale advertising, we needed to reach a wide audience, making it easy to donate now and in the future. So we created The Street Store - the world’s first rent-free, premises-free, free “pop-up clothing store” for the homeless.

On social media we called for donations, then using our limited budget we printed interactive posters, creating a unique on-street ‘shopping’ experience, bringing the haves and have-nots together like never before. We brought in clothing for Haven residents, generated awareness for future donations, and clothed the homeless.

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.