(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

Dear Editor,

We thank you for mentioning Clothesline in your May 20 article ‘Bin Wars’ will not play out in city parks. As Clothesline and the Canadian Diabetes Association have been a member of the Kamloops community for more than 30 years, we would like an opportunity to supplement the information covered in the article.  

Our Clothesline RED donation bins are located throughout Kamloops to accept clothing and cloth-based donations only. To prevent dumping, we encourage donors who have larger donations, or wish to donate other items besides clothing to call their local Clothesline office toll-free at 1-800-505-5525 or fill out an online form at diabetes.ca/promise to schedule a free pick-up right from their door. Clothesline is the industry gold standard in service and we work closely with our partners to ensure all boxes are responsibly service and safe for our donors.

It’s important that donors do their research before donating to a cause. Clothesline knows that donations are a demonstration of trust – and will continue to work proactively with municipalities and communities to ensure the sector is appropriately regulated (including the use of drop boxes) and that these regulations are enforced. All donors can visit diabetes.ca/dropbox to find the drop box location nearest their home and have comfort knowing that One hundred per cent of the funds raised through Clothesline directly supports important Canadian Diabetes Association activities such as funding:

- diabetes research (the Association funds more than $7 million a year in diabetes research);

- diabetes camps for children with type 1 diabetes (more than 1,600 children attend camp each year) – 17 children and 7 families from the Kamloops community have attended D-Camp since 2011;

- the development of clinical practice guidelines; and

- other key Association programs and services for people living with diabetes and for those who care for them.

While funds may initially be centralized to head office, they are re-appropriated into local programs and services. The Kamloops Branch of volunteers deliver peer support programming for people with diabetes and have recently started delivering a South Asian version of this group. They have been involved in hosting diabetes expos and deliver learning series presentations. Also, Clothesline not only of benefits people living with diabetes and prediabetes, it also helps to protect our environment:

- Last year, the program diverted more than 48 million kilograms of clothing, household items and furniture from landfills across Canada

- This translates into a savings of 876 million kWh of energy and reduces our donors’ carbon footprint by 120 million kilograms of CO2 emissions

- This energy savings is equivalent to driving a car 43 thousand times around the earth or saving 8.6 million trees

Again, thank you and if you have any questions, please reach out to me directly.

Best,

Clayton S. Claveau
Senior Manager, Marketing & Communications

Canadian Diabetes Association
1400 - 522 University Avenue
Toronto, ON M5G 2R5
P: (416) 408-7113
C: (416) 316-9771
F: (416) 363-0196
clayton.claveau@diabetes.ca

News from © iNFOnews, 2014