The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2014–2024
The Street Store turns a fence into a clothing shop where homeless people choose
M&C Saatchi Abel turned donated clothes into a rent-free pop-up store on Cape Town streets, giving homeless shoppers choice — and a model 60+ countries copied.
The Haven Night Shelter
What it had to solve
The Haven Night Shelter in Cape Town needed awareness and donations on a tiny budget — roughly R5,000. The founders' insight was that charity often humiliates: recipients receive what others decide, not what they need, so the challenge was to make giving dignified.
How it works
The Street Store began in Cape Town in January 2014 as a project by Max Pazak and Kayli Levitan with M&C Saatchi Abel and The Haven Night Shelter. Their idea was to make charity feel like shopping: die-cut posters turned public fences into clothing racks, and donors hung up clothes for homeless people to browse.
Shoppers could choose what they actually liked — many for the first time — instead of accepting whatever was offered. The whole system was open-source: anyone could print the posters, hang up donated clothes and host a store in their own community.
The idea spread quickly: within two days it was trending nationally, more than 3,500 homeless people were clothed in South Africa, and stores later opened on six continents. Cannes gave it a Gold Lion in Design and a Bronze Lion in Media in 2014.
Why it lands
- Turning donation into shopping restores agency: the person receives dignity along with the clothes.
- Fences and hangers cost almost nothing, so the campaign could work on a budget of a few thousand rand.
- Open-sourcing the posters made replication trivial — every city could run its own store without the agency.
- Clothing people who cannot afford it kept good clothes out of landfill, adding an environmental reason to participate.
What it did
Within two days the campaign trended nationally; more than 3,500 homeless people were clothed in South Africa alone, direct donors multiplied threefold, and it won a Cannes Gold Lion in Design plus a Bronze Lion in Media in 2014.
What you can take
Dignity is part of the product: when receiving becomes shopping, the person is treated as a customer with taste, and giving becomes easier for everyone involved.
Since then
The Street Store became a global movement rather than a one-off event: by 2024 its organizers counted more than 1,100 stores hosted across six continents and over one million people clothed with dignity. It also raised more than $2 million toward the cause in its first year and attracted backing from partners such as ONE and TED. The format is still run annually by charities around the world, making it one of the most copied civic ideas of the decade.
Sources
- M&C Saatchi Abel Cape Town Wins Gold for 'The Street Store'
- Mensch Network launches in Cape Town
- The Street Store: A Lesson for the Sharing Economy?
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