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Show I Deseret Industries has distributed 600 tons of clothes Gloria Ostler doesn't even glance back as she tosses a yellow sweater into a barrel behind her, hitting her target dead on. A second later, she slings a brown shirt into a barrel to her right, then pitches a faded denim jacket to her left By the end of the day, she will have sorted some 6,000 pieces of clothing into 23 categories. Within a few days the clothes will be further fur-ther sorted, folded, compressed into dense bales, then shipped to needy people in many parts of the world. Ostler is part of a team of workers in Provo, Utah, who sort surplus clothing donated to Deseret Industries, a network of 48 secondhand second-hand stores owned and run by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-k Latter-k day Saints. "Clothing contributions exceed what the stores need for their stock, explained D. Weston Thatcher, general manager of the Sort Center. Until a few months ago the surplus was sold-mostly un-sorted un-sorted to dealers who market used clothing in the Third World. "The church recently decided that rather than sell the surplus, we would put it to purely humanitarian use,' said Thatcher. Since December, approximately 600 tons of clothes have been distributed in countries such as Uganda, Liberia, Bangladesh, Peru, Ecuador and the Philippines. "Sorting is essential because the clothes can't be efficiently used or distributed if they're shipped in a large bundle that could include everything from wool suits to flimsy flim-sy summer blouses," said Thatcher. The survivors of the Bangladesh typhoon, for instance, don't need ski parkas or flannel nightgowns. They do need light jackets, men's and women's slacks, and children's shoes. Sorting ensures those needs are more closely filled. The sorting process is simple but physically taxing. In a huge warehouse filled with the vibrant colors of a large number of clothing, sorters yank an item from a huge pile in front of each, quickly determine its category, and toss it into the appropriate barrel. When sorting for summer clothes, they have 23 choices and thus 23 barrels. Winter clothing has 12 categories. At peak performance, the 12 first sorters toss about 15 items per minute per sorternearly 1.5 million pieces a year. Runners empty the barrels as they fill and transfer the sorted clothes to another huge room, where more sorters break the clothing down into 30 more categories, such as "youth light coats," "girls' blouses" and ' 'cotton nightgowns. ' The items are then smoothed, neatly folded and transferred in piles to the baling area, where a machine compresses them into a compact bale that weighs about 1 30 pounds. The bales are wrapped in waterproof water-proof plastic and marked with a date, category code, and bale number, then stacked on flats where they wait to be forklifted into a truck and shipped to their destination. destina-tion. About 30 percent of the unsorted clothing is not wearable because it is too worn, too dirty, or for the wrong season. These go to ten cutters, who slice them into wiping cloths and sort them into 14 categories (fleece, flannel, chenille, etc.) for sale to industry. Ostler, for example, is one of many Hispanic immigrants who use the job as a buffer while they learn English and acquire skills for other employment. Less demanding jobs, such as cutting wiping cloths, go to physically or mentally disabled individuals. in-dividuals. For non-handicapped men and women, employment with Deseret Industries is time-limited, and they get help finding language courses, getting job training, and setting employment goals. "The program blesses three groups," said Thatcher,"the poor who are given the clothes, the workers who get a job, and the giversthe people who donate. ' ' Deseret Industries collects about 20 million pieces of surplus clothing each year but has the space to sort only one-third of them. Next year, the sorting operation will move from its current 30,000 square foot warehouse to a building three times that size. "We hope to make the entire amount of surplus clothing available to the poor of the world," said Thatcher. Deseret Industries was established estab-lished by the Church in 1938 to employ the handicapped and to reduce waste by encouraging reuse of household goods. It now employs 2,250 people in Utah, Idaho, California, Arizona, Nevada, Washington and Oregon. h L l 1 fc |