How every donation tells a story at Thames Hospice’s charity shops

From quirky skeletons to vintage clothes, Thames Hospice’s charity shops raise essential funds for its end-of-life care.

The Advertiser spoke to shop manager Emma Taylor and head of retail Annie Campbell about how every donation helps keep the tills ringing.

A charity shop doesn’t just raise money for a good cause, it relies on charitable donations to help keep its shelves well-stocked throughout the year.

Thames Hospice’s charity shops are no different: treasures of all shapes and sizes, including some of the ‘weird and wonderful’ variety, all help keep the tills ringing.

Whether it’s the Maidenhead Homestore in Boyn Valley Road, where furniture is restored, or one of the tens of more traditional shops across the Thames Valley, every item can make a big difference.

At Thames Hospice’s charity shop in Dedworth, manager Emma Taylor discussed the work that goes on behind the scenes to keep the floor operating at its best.

“Some of my customers come in four times a day because they know that we're getting stock out all day - it's constant here,” Ms Taylor said, adding: “It's a real community shop in Dedworth.”

There are more than 40 staff who work at the shop, open seven days a week, including many long-serving volunteers who have a trained eye for a sale.

Deliveries and donations are always arriving. A record Christmas period saw more than 12,000 sales made there.

The Dedworth shop alone raises more than £30,000 a month to support Thames Hospice in providing end-of-life care to thousands of people across the Thames Valley.

While popular purchases include jewellery, vintage clothes to vinyl records, some of the items snapped up over the years fall into a category of their own.

“I've had a full-size skeleton from a lab donated before,” Ms Taylor said. “It was absolutely brilliant - he was in the shop for a while.

The skeleton got a new lease of life as a spooky Halloween prop in the Dedworth shop before it was eventually sold on to a new home.

“I think we got about £100 for it in the end,” Ms Taylor said.

“We actually hung on to him for a while because we're really good with our windows - we all take pride in it.

“We would put a picture of the shop window out on Facebook and we'd have a queue of people the next day.

“So, the skeleton came in very handy for our Halloween window that year.”

More bizarre items to have been donated included a gruesome stuffed toe from a camel, a menagerie of taxidermied animals, as well as a hamster’s running wheel big enough for a cat.

Consideration does need to be given to the standard of goods, there have been problems in the past with broken electronics, bin bags of donations dumped outside shops.

But if it’s in good condition and can be sold, it will find a place on the shopfloor.

There is even an eBay store to cater for the ever-growing online marketplace.

Every pound raised matters for Thames Hospice, which has a more than £20million bill to foot each year, as the charity’s interim head of retail Annie Campbell said.

“There's really three arms to our income,” she said.

“One is funded through NHS England, two is through our fundraising team and the third is through retail.

“We're quite a pivotal role within that income stream.

“Without us we would struggle to deliver what is needed for our patients.

“It costs £39,000 a day to run our services and we run those services 365 days a year.”

For Ms Campbell, the importance of that work is personal.

Her father, Ian Burrows, died from a brain tumour at 67 in a care home that she said simply couldn’t provide the same level of end-of-life support offered by Thames Hospice.

In addition, Ms Campbell draws on 25 years of charity work, including more than a decade at Thames Hospice, to ensure the shops keep running smoothly and raising crucial funds

She said: “Unlike mainstream retail, where you know what's coming through your door and you just have to put it out on the shop floor, we have to work harder for our stock.”

“If it's furniture, our team can just pick it up. But most of our donations come in a bag or in a box and we have to sort through them and choose what’s saleable.

“If it’s clothing for example, we steam everything, we have to ticket it and price it, and then we have to merchandise it.

“Sometimes, I don't think people realise the um I don't think people realise what it takes to get it to that point of sale.”

There are moments of excitement for staff when an unsual item gets unearthed, judging what could that have been used for.

Ms Campbell said: “some weird and wonderful uh wonderful things, but um like I say, you know, every every donation is is so important to us.”

Thames Hospice is always on the lookout for donations, and at the moment is in particular need of homeware and furtniture.

For more information about how you can help, visit the hospice’s website at thameshospice.org.uk/donate-goods/