Two pubs have raised £1,500 with a pop up boutique at The Brookmans Pub in Potters Bar by selling donated items from staff and customers of The White Horse in Hatching Green in aid of The Willow Foundation.
Lauren Bailey, who organised the sale, said: “The community were so supportive of the event and I’d like to thank everyone who played a part. The Willow Foundation is an amazing local charity which does so much to support young adults living with life-threatening illnesses.”
Charity workers have been amazed at the level of donations for a new pop up charity shop. The Opportunity Box - located in St John’s Street, Coleford - is supporting the work of the Children’s Opportunity Centre.
The shop’s organizer, Georgina Ford, said: “We have been absolutely overwhelmed at the support we’ve had. There has been so many donations – anything you could imagine someone wanting to donate, we’ve got it.”
The shop has been donated for free for the month by a generous local landlord.
If you are in the area, pop in and take a look.
Trading for just over three months, the Made in Northamptonshire pop up store in St Giles Street, Northampton is still going strong. Helen Senogles, who oversees the project, explained: “We opened two weeks before Christmas and we have the lease for nine months. It is a showcase for all local artists, designers and crafts people.”
a\The project has been supported by a range of groups which includes Creative Northants, the University of Northampton, the Business Improvement district and the Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership
Helen said: “Creative Northants put out an advert two weeks before Christmas and we have had more than 200 artists and designers already. We took that down to 40 for the first month and since then we have taken on more artists from across the county – Wellingborough, Kettering, Corby – and they have all sorts of skills, from contemporary to traditional. There are so many different artists and so many different people producing things in the county.”
She added: “We had an amazing Christmas and smashed every target and, now we are growing to accommodate different targets, we are holding drop-in sessions with Creative Northants. We have until August and then we will have to see how the project develops from there.”
Samantha Burak’s world fell apart when she discovered her mum had terminal cancer, but the 21 year old student vowed to honour her mum by fund-raising in aid of Cancer Research UK.
Samantha and six of her fellow students are now set to open up a pop up shop to drum up cash for the charity and famous faces have donated clothes, bags and accessories for the shop.
Fearne Cotton, Gok Wan and model Zara Martin have all donated items and the pop up shop opens for one day only on 2nd March at the Pavillions Shopping Mall in Birmingham.
The students, who have organised the event as part of their degrees in Fashion Retail Management, will be also raising money to help fund the university’s Graduate Fashion Week.
Samantha, who splits her time between her studies and travelling to stay at her mum’s hospital bedside in Hertfordshire, says: “When we were told to think up a charity to benefit from the event, Cancer Research UK was really a no-brainer as all of us had been affected by the illness in some kind of way. My mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer four years ago and she got the all-clear, but then it spread to her bowel. We were then told that the cancer was incurable. Words can’t describe how devastating that was.”
For more information, follow @popupforcancer on Twitter.
An initiative to promote wellbeing is being held in Altrincham. Using music, arts and crafts to promote positive health messages, the pop up is located at 59 George Street, Altrincham from 23rd February until 2nd March.
The pop up space will offer a range of activities, including music from BOOMbox volunteers and Seed Studios, health assessments carried out by Trafford Community Leisure Trust and complementary therapies. The activities are focused around the findings of the Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project (2008), which found that for good mental health and wellbeing the ’5-a-day’ should be ‘Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give.
Trafford Council, NHS Trafford and the Health and Wellbeing Board have helped the group to develop the pop up project and successfully bid for Big Lottery Funding to support it. Julie Howarth of SCILightARTS said: “If the event is successful we will be looking to work with partners to deliver the event in other town centres across Trafford later on in the year.”
99 Risbygate Street, Bury St Edmunds will host a pop up shop offering advice on how to keep warm in winter and how to get help if you are struggling to pay your energy bills. Visitors will be able to find out if they are eligible for some of the free help on offer including insulation, draught proofing or assistance with paying fuel bills or the loan of a heater. The ‘Warm Homes Healthy People’ scheme also offers home energy surveys and can help owners or tenants with a private landlord.
Making a difference to the lives of homeless people in Folkstone, community music company Bluesky Pie is running a pop up shop at 67 Old High Street from Saturday until 23rd February.
In aid of the Folkstone Churches Winter Shelter, the shop will be open daily between 10am and 4pm and will be selling second hand clothing, books and toys to help fund a van for the project.
Organiser Di Burns said: “We think it’s so important to look after homeless people in our community. We went to visit the shelter in one of the churches last week and we were very moved by how hard the volunteers work to care for their clients. We met some lovely people who were very pleased there was such provision so we want to raise as much money as possible for them.”
For more information see www.wintershelter.org.uk
Marble Arch was the location for the new M&S two day Oxfam pop up shwop shop. Over 40 celebrities including Alexa Chung, Daisy Lowe and Plan B all donated items that were sold. To gain entry to the shop you needed a special ticket – something to “shwop” (an unwanted or unused item of clothing).
Adam Elman, Head of Plan A Delivery at Marks & Spencer, said: “The Shwop Shop is a celebration of shwopping. Fashion influencers, designers, stylists, thought-leaders and visionaries have given their sign of approval by donating their unwanted items and we hope this will inspire a new generation of shwoppers who see fashion and sustainability as one. The aim is to change people’s attitudes towards clothes recycling and give unwanted garments a future.”
“By opening your hearts, minds and your wardrobe and going shwopping, you can not only bag an outfit worn on the red carpet or to a glitzy awards evening, but help the environment too. Fashion with a conscience, it is perfect isn’t it? By shwopping all we want you to do is give your unwanted items stuffed in the back of your wardrobe a future. Simply bring an old item back every time you buy a new outfit, shwop and shop! Come to the Shwop Shop, shwop and shop and leave with a smile – the world will then feel a better place!”
Marks and Spencer has pioneered the idea of shwopping – a revolutionary clothes recycling initiative where customers can donate any item of clothing, of any brand, to be re-used, resold or recycled by charity partner Oxfam.
The campaign aims to put an end to the one billion items currently ending up in landfill every year. All M&S clothing stores now accept used and unwanted items of clothing from any brand, all year round. The ultimate aim for M&S is to collect 350 million items a year – recycling as many clothes as it sells.
A teenage fundraiser is planning to open a charity shop with a difference and is appealing to landlords to help him find a suitable pop up shop at a reasonable rent in Ely, Cambridgeshire.
Callum Fairhurst, who has already raised nearly £100,000 for cancer charities, intends to carry on the fund raising legacy of his brother who died of cancer aged 14 in 2009. Liam Fairhurst raised more then £320,000 in his lifetime.
Callum said: “It’s not any ordinary charity shop because it’s not just about raising money for the charity. We want to bring talent out of young people and give them something to do. So it’ll be primarily run by young people with the help of adults who are professionals in that area of work.”
The shop, which will sell clothes, has attracted the support of a “well-known artist and several top designers” – now Callum just needs premises.
All the money raised by the Liam Fairhurst Foundation either goes to charities such as CLIC Sargent, or to help support families with young cancer patients.
If you can help, contact Callum via twitter @blackpigsweets
Margaret Aspinal, whose 18 year old son died in the Hillsborough disaster, has opened a store to raise funds for the victims’ families. The shop is open in Liverpool’s St John’s Shopping Centre and all proceeds will benefit The Hillsborough Family Support Group, which is run by Mrs Aspinal. Margaret said: “In recent months we have been overwhelmed by the power of the people of Liverpool, who have demanded their voices be heard. So many people have asked if we have a shop, because we only used to sell from our website. Having a full size store allows the extra space we needed to offer other things that shoppers have asked for, and we expect the ‘Justice for the 96’ t-shirts to be very popular.” The unit for the pop-up shop has been provided free of charge by St John’s. Ian Ward, Centre Director at St John’s, said: “What happened at Hillsborough will be forever ingrained in the minds of people in this city. We welcome the pop up shop to the centre and wish it every success in raising funds for the families affected.”