Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 412 Clothing Rental Bureau
The so-called clothing rental bureau originally came from the idea that came to Perfect when he saw the piles of "old clothes" that had never been worn in Princess Anne's closet.

However, Perfecto's idea at that time was to organize a charity sale, auction off the "old clothes" that the eldest princess no longer wore, and use the charity funds to improve the lives of the poor in Langton.

This is actually very similar to what the original World Charity Foundation did, which was to auction something and then use the proceeds from the auction for charity.

However, in the original world, the so-called charity auctions are basically the same as money laundering. They can only be regarded as a kind of social activity to gild the reputation of the rich, and the so-called charity funds are also largely used to avoid taxes.

As for how much charity they actually do?
I'm sorry, but animal protection and dog rescue has formed a special industry chain. Some people collect dogs from other areas and put them in special places. Then people from charity funds carry out the so-called "rescue" and thus defraud subsidies from the local government.

You can imagine what charity that truly helps others is like.

Perfect remembered that in the original world, someone had made a very ironic video, which was about a charity fund sponsoring so-called poor children in Africa to go to school. It turned out that the child was a local relative, who drank Coke and enjoyed air conditioning every day. When he needed help, he would act in front of the camera. Then, he would take the high subsidies and watch the children who were really starving to the point of skin and bones not even having a sip of clean water.

Of course, this is not the kind of charity that Perfectcott wants to do. The clothing rental agency she set up is meant to do real work.

Its main operating model is indeed not much different from the charitable organizations in the original world, but in essence it is a semi-official private industry directly under the Northern Lord's Mansion.

Because the so-called clothing rental bureau is an industry that belongs entirely to Perfectcot himself, but because of Perfectcot's special identity, it has a certain official nature.

Although the main operating model of this clothing rental agency is similar to the charity organizations in the original world, Perfectcot made it clear at the beginning of its establishment that it would not accept any donations, and all operating funds were allocated by the Lord's Mansion.

The purpose of doing this is of course to avoid unnecessary trouble and to ensure that the organization can operate according to its own will.

As for how the Clothing Rental Bureau does charity, that is just Perfect’s personal opinion.

As the name suggests, the Clothing Rental Bureau is a place to rent clothes, and the charity work it mainly engages in is this business that sounds strange and has nothing to do with charity.

Because of the special environment in the North, although the lower-class people are equally poor, they basically have stable jobs and can earn enough to eat three meals a day and have enough food and clothing.

There are no lower-class poor people like Langton who are completely struggling on the poverty line, cannot even get enough food, and are in a state of hunger for a long time.

This also means that charity in the North does not require completely free help, but rather some more practical improvements to life.

After all, everyone has a job and can support their family. It's just that their life is a little hard, but they are not so poor that they need help and assistance from others to get by.

Most of these people have a certain degree of self-esteem. If you directly ask them for funding or free assistance, it will be regarded as a humiliation to a large extent.

Even if neither the helper nor the helped has such subjective intention, for those who are able to work and support a family, free assistance will indeed make them feel humiliated.

Perfect had some experience in this regard, so she provided these poor people with a cheap clothing rental service rather than simply providing free help.

She asked the factory to produce a batch of winter clothes made of synthetic fibers, and then put them into the clothing rental bureau, "renting" them to the lower-class people in need at a very cheap price. For these lower-class people, they only need to spend one-tenth of the price of the clothes to rent them for a whole winter.

Of course, these all need to be registered, pledged, and even guaranteed.

Although Perfect does charity, he doesn't want to meet people who are greedy for small gains.

At first glance, this does not seem to be a very cheap price. Renting a piece of clothing at one-tenth of the price of the original piece of clothing, and only wearing it for one winter, is a somewhat extravagant act no matter how you look at it.

If purchased normally, the price will be ten times more expensive, but people of this era can wear the same piece of clothing for several generations.

For example, in Perfectcot's wardrobe there are some ancestral clothes that the old housekeeper dug out from Brandelis Manor. Some of the skirts were worn by Perfectcot's grandmother's grandmother, and some traditional Victorian men's clothing was bought by her grandfather's great-grandfather's great-grandfather.

It is conceivable that even though productivity has increased in the industrial age and there are indeed more clothes, it is still a tradition to cherish clothes and wear the same clothes for several generations.

Even in the original world, Perfect had experienced the time when he wore his father's clothes when he was a child. The main thing was that a piece of clothing could be worn for more than ten years and still look as good as new.

So one tenth of the price is only enough to rent it for one winter, which is really not cheap.

The reason why Perfect sets such a threshold is to eliminate those who want to take advantage of others and to help those who are in need but are unwilling to show that they need help due to their self-esteem.

Because in addition to setting a nearly high rent, Perfecto also designed an additional rule, which is that after one winter, the person who rents the clothes can buy the clothes for a price equivalent to one-third of the total price of the clothes.

That is to say, people who rent clothes first wear them for a winter at one-tenth of the price, and then buy them at one-third of the price.

If you do the math, you will find that this is indeed charity, because buying a winter cotton coat at one-third of the market price is still affordable for most families, and they will not feel humiliated.

This not only takes care of their self-esteem, but also ensures that they are truly helped.

It is for this reason that many people are willing to spend a little money to rent a few winter clothes from a clothing rental agency so that their family can have a more comfortable winter.

And those who rented clothes were silently grateful to Perfect in their hearts, thanking her for setting up the clothing rental bureau and solving their urgent needs.

After all, for these people, they really don't have much money to buy winter clothes, and those who need to live frugally really can't afford to buy clothes.

But now, with the money for one piece of clothing, you can rent ten pieces of clothing, which is enough for the whole family to get through the winter.

(End of this chapter)