St Helena Hospice’s donation centre in Peartree Road, Colchester, reopened on Monday 8th March.
The local charity has been granted permission from Colchester Borough Council to reopen its donation centre, as donating and recycling items is permitted under Government guidelines.
All donations will be dropped off outside and all customers are asked to socially distance and follow Covid-19 guidelines when donating their items.
Ian Daniels, St Helena’s head of retail, said: “We are delighted reopen our donation centre – it is one of the top enquiries we receive, asking if the centre is open for donations, so we are pleased to be able to welcome people back and accept their donations.
“We’re sure many people will have taken advantage of the third lockdown to have an early spring clean; plus there will be those who have been holding onto any unwanted Christmas presents to donate, with the hope they will find a good home!
“As all of our shops are still shut, we’re focussing on selling good quality and unique items online via our eBay and Amazon shops, which raises around £8-10,000 a week for us; however, we are still suffering a loss of around £250,000 a month from our 18 shops being shut. We really appreciate all the donations we receive, as all the money raised from the items well sell goes towards providing care and support to local people facing dying, death and bereavement.”
The news of the approval to reopen the donation centre comes alongside the good news from the Government, and the hope that non-essential retail can reopen from 12th April.
Ian added: “We cannot wait to reopen all our shops in April, when the Government allows, but for now, we’re looking forward to welcoming you back to the donation centre.
“We do ask you to be patient with us when donating your items. When the donation centre reopened after the first lockdown, we were inundated with donations which was fantastic, but meant we struggled with storage space and processing it all quickly, so please bear with us, as we expect there will be queues when dropping your donations off.”
The donation centre is open Monday to Friday from 10am to 2pm, and closed at the weekends.
Unfortunately, St Helena is unable to accept furniture donations for now. To see a full list of items the donation centre can accept, please click here