When people drive to a household waste centre to throw away ‘rubbish’, they often don’t realise that they may instead be giving invaluable support to The South Bucks Community Hospice.
The Hospice runs two re-use shops – one at High Heavens in Booker; the other at Aston Clinton – which exist to salvage and sell on unwanted items to raise money for patients with life-limiting conditions.
It’s the job of staff at these shops to spot and rescue saleable goods before they are thrown into the bins and sent for incineration.
And the figures from the shops bear testimony to their success, because every year they sell on thousands of items, raising much-needed funds for Hospice care.
Jim Ing, 48, from High Wycombe, has worked at the re-use shop at High Heavens for about a year and a half. It’s Jim’s job to sort out the stock, and he also prides himself on being able to identify what can be salvaged and successfully resold.
“It is quite shocking what some people throw away,” he said. “I can look in somebody’s boot and see something they are going to throw away that could sell for a fiver. I always ask if they can give it to the re-use shop and, in the majority of cases, they do.”
He added: “You get all sorts of items in here. We get some really good old furniture and some nice artwork that sells. Once, I went up to the cage in a container up top and found a really lovely old bureau. We took it out of the container and sold it for about £60 – otherwise it would have been thrown away.”
In a typical year, about 35,000 transactions are made across the two re-use shops.
Bizarre finds over the years that staff have saved from the tip have included a false leg, live fish and a German World War 2 range finder. But normally, the shops are stacked full of furniture, bikes, books, vinyl records. CDs and nick-nacks. The bicycles are repaired by prisoners and resold by the shops in a scheme run with a Young Offenders’ Institution.
Carl Jones, manager of the Hospice re-use shop at High Heavens, said: “This job is rewarding and challenging every day. Our mission is to raise as much money as we can for the Hospice. We do remind people, though, when they start to try to make us drop the prices where this money goes. It goes to help Hospice patients and that’s why we try so hard every month to up our figures. I am dedicated to raising funding for our hospice.”
Grace Olaniyi, 58, is a former Marie Curie cancer nurse and is now a volunteer at the re-use shop at High Heavens.
She said: “I have always liked to raise funds, and I did so when I was working as a nurse. I find this very rewarding in that the money I raise is going for a good cause, helping nurses and helping people with end-of-life care.”
The Hospice shops are open seven days a week at High Heavens and Aston Clinton.
