We are immensely grateful for every single donation that we receive here at St Peter & St James Hospice, be it monetary or items to sell through our various retail outlets. The generosity of our supporters has been particularly outstanding throughout the pandemic. Our warehouse became positively overwhelmed with donations! Our local community shops were only able to trade on a click and collect basis, and we relied on our online presence for much needed income.
We outgrew our warehouse, and moved to our new Distribution Centre in Hurstpierpoint. The Income Generation team came together and organised a day where the Fundraising team could help the Retail team out at the DC. This proved to be a great help to the Retail team, and good fun and team-building for Income Generation as a whole!
In September, the Communications team joined the Income Generation team for the second ‘sorting day’ trip to the DC. By the end of the day, the teams had cleared nearly two ‘stables’ full of clothing donations and also managed to clear the homeware shelves completely.
Each of our fashion stores are unique and require different stock, so all the clothes were distributed based on each store’s individual style – e.g. Lewes tends to stock more retro / vintage clothing. It was interesting to learn more about what sells best in each area, and how each store and the Distribution Centre have adapted to suit these trends.
Take a look at where our retail outlets are located here.
What we would like to reiterate in this post are the items that are appropriate / not appropriate for donation, as our time at the DC really highlighted some of the issues caused by inappropriate donations.
Currently, our Distribution Centre will accept donations of:
- Clean items that are in a saleable condition
- Any of your pre-loved indoor or outdoor furniture
- Antique or vintage items
We do also accept clothing donations both at the DC and at our clothing banks in the following locations:
- St Peter & St James Hospice (in the staff car park)
- Wivelsfield Village Hall
- Cyprus Road car park, Burgess Hill
- Outside our Lindfield shop
- Ditchling Recreation Ground car park
- Cumnor House School
- Hurstpierpoint College
- Christs Hospital
(We can also accept rag if it is clearly labelled on the bag.)
For a full list of items that we cannot accept or sell, please click here.
We would love to encourage all teams from the hospice to visit the DC and take the opportunity to help Emily, Ben and Maddie and the rest of the retail & DC team of staff and volunteers, with sorting all the generous donations that we receive and prepare them for distribution to our retail outlets. If you are interested in helping out, please contact Emily, Head of Trading at ecronin@stpjhospice.org.
Wendy, our Community Champion, is also on the lookout for external corporate volunteers to come and volunteer for a day’s team-building at the DC. If you are part of a local business that may potentially be interested in volunteering, please contact Wendy Agate at wagate@stpjhospice.org or 01444 470 713.
