The Street Store
Pop-up charity for the homeless
Cities around the world have wealthy people living alongside the less fortunate. Cape Town is an example of this disparity in which affluent people move past homeless individuals without ever connecting. The Street Store aims to change this by facilitating a temporary meeting point between these groups to benefit the impoverished. The Street Store launched successfully in January 2014. Its progress has been due, in part, to the minimal nature of its infrastructure. It is a rent-free, pop-up charity that can be held in any city across the globe with the help of volunteers and a few pieces of cardboard. Open-source poster designs can be downloaded from TheStreetStore.org. Once printed, the designs are assembled and used as hangers and place mats to hold clothing donations. The donated items are hung on an outdoor fence for the homeless to browse through. Once the event has ended and all items of clothing have been taken, the cardboard posters are collected and recycled.