Sleeping Bags and Solar Lamps: Pop-Up Shop Lets You Buy Holiday Gifts for Refugees

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/business/gifts-refugees-new-york.html

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Holiday customers shopping at a pop-up store in Manhattan this week left without baubles or packages to give to their family and friends. Instead, they bought gifts that would be sent to refugees in faraway camps — sleeping bags, blankets, solar lamps and onesies.

The store, Choose Love, is a New York offshoot of a successful pop-up that was created by the nonprofit group Help Refugees and made its debut in London last winter. Help Refugees was founded in 2015 to deliver donations to refugees in Calais, France, where displaced people from Syria, Afghanistan, parts of Africa and other places struggling with violence were trying to make their way to Britain.

The charity now distributes items to and serves more than 80 projects in Croatia, France, Greece, Iraq and Turkey, among other places. “We wanted to turn consumerism on its head,” said Josie Naughton, the chief executive of Help Refugees. “The news is so depressing. We want people to feel empowered.”

Choose Love opened its doors in SoHo on Tuesday and will close Christmas Eve. It is already bustling with eager donors. Hannah Smith, a junior at Barnard College, went to the store with three friends on Wednesday and bought a Mother and Baby bundle for $54. The gift includes a month’s supply of diapers, an insulated onesie, food and hygiene supplies.

“I decided to do it in my mother’s name,” she said. She did not know much about the plight of refugees before she visited, she said, “but being able to support other mothers is my way to create a personal connection.”

Choose Love offers a variety of items and services to help refugees in camps and the places where they eventually settle, Ms. Naughton said. The physical store and its online counterpart are separated into three sections: “Arrival,” which features emergency blankets, children’s coats and food for sale; “Shelter,” including tents and sleeping bags; and “Future,” where donations are accepted for education, legal fees and housing.

Last year the London store and its online equivalent raised nearly $1 million, which helped provide refugees with 800,000 meals, accommodations for 3,556 nights, 25,000 winter items for adults, and 100,000 essential items for babies and children, including 77,000 packages of diapers, according to Choose Love.

In 2017, the number of people who have been driven from their homes to escape conflict and persecution rose to 68.5 million, a record high, according to a study conducted for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Ms. Naughton said her group came up with the name Choose Love at the suggestion of Katharine Hamnett, a politically conscious fashion designer who created a T-shirt for the organization that has become a favorite among fashionistas.

Ms. Naughton said New Yorkers like Ms. Smith had eagerly embraced the pop-up store’s mission. “A man brought us cookies yesterday,” she said. A mother told her she would return with her children, who wanted to use their allowance to buy jackets for boys and girls.

“This is more emotional than in London,” Ms. Naughton said. “Americans really want to help.”