Recently I received a request for assistance from the Pastor at Remar Hong Kong, a Christian Charity that provides shelter and food for the rehabilitation and reinsertion into society, of drug addicts, alcoholics, down and outs, homeless and the needy in general. He told me that some wealthy kind hearted people had just donated to Remar, over 300 pieces of internationally acclaimed designer garments, accessories and shoes including items from: Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Escada, Kenzo, Fendi, Prada, Moscchino, Max Mara, Salvatore Ferragamo, Bally and many more. Not knowing what to do with so many items, the Pastor asked me for advice, emphasizing that of all the people he knew in Hong Kong, I was the only one he believed would be able to assist him with this.

Understanding full well how desperately Remar needed more funds to support a full house of needy people, the first thing that came to my mind on hearing of his situation was fund raising. But the big question was how and where we could organize something like this. Of course I go shopping, but have had no previous experience in actual retailing. Questions like this flashed through my mind when the Pastor asked "so can I shift all these bulky bags over to your office then?" and I heard myself saying yes...of course...

The next thing I knew was 15 gigantic bags of designer garments and accessories arriving at my office, so that a large part of the office was now transformed into a storage facility. Taken aback by such a sight, and one that had many of my clients asking if we were running another business on the side, apart from our main business of website design! Feeling a touch of regret, I wondered how on earth I was going manage all this by myself. But it was all too late for questions like that now, what was urgently required was a quick solution. So I plunged in and started to plan some kind of private sale to be held at my office, probably over the course of a weekend or two. Eventually I decided to do the selling over two alternate Saturdays..

I'll never forget the evening before the first Saturday's sale, pulling out one by one, the contents from this huge mountain of bags, dividing up all those seemingly countless pieces into different categories, sorting them by brand, by type, by season etc. Then having to fold and iron them, and finally arrange them into neat stacks. Through all the emotional highs and lows that ensued over the more than seven hours it took to get through this, I came to the realization that I was in fact becoming something of an "expert" in the business of retail selling. The most amusing thing of all however, was finding myself handling these magnificent pieces from the great fashion houses as though I were handling items from Giordanots!

When the big day arrived, a few very helpful friends came along to assist me, however the number of potential customers who turned up was disappointing, the more so because these were top brands that we were selling! So I promised myself that we would put in an even bigger effort the following week.

The second Saturday came around before I even realized it, repeating all the exact same work that had been done two weeks earlier. But this time it was a huge success. I am immensely grateful for the kind support of a dear friend who helped spread the word. As a result we generated over $90,000 in revenue for Remar from the sales on these two Saturdays. I cannot begin to describe how happy, how fulfilling and rewarding this experience was for me!

Although the sale was eventually very successful we still had 80 garments left unsold. To be honest I didn't have the heart to return the remaining items to Remar, and at the same time it became painfully clear that I simply couldn't run another sale like this at my office; transforming a high-tech office into a salesroom and then back again is simply not practical. As a result I decided to develop an on-line shop for Remar. This followed logically as Rebound had already sponsored a website for Remar several years earlier when they opened a branch in Hong Kong. In fact Remar was one of the many charities and non-profits sponsored and supported by Rebound in recent years.

As we started work on the on-line shop project for Remar, it occurred to me that there were many more charities facing fund raising issues similar to Remar.

Some of these charities may in fact have products manufactured in their own workshops or available from caring sponsors and kind donors, which have the potential to become fund raising items...

And this is how the concept of Caring Focus started to evolve; unlike building an on-line shop, the amount of work and project lead-time for Caring Focus would be expanded significantly, from one month to something like six months.

I sincerely believe that Caring Focus will serve not only as an excellent on-line platform, providing new fund raising opportunities for charities but also in serving to further promote charity awareness in general.

Founder
Nancy Porchetta