St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice celebrate first anniversary of Wragby Road shop
St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice are celebrating a successful first year of their shop on Wragby Road in Lincoln and their supporters are being invited to a special birthday celebration.
The celebration event will be held on Saturday 5th September and will include a raffle and tombola with a host of prizes from local retailers.
The hospice shop opened in August last year after the local charity won the unit rent-free for one year in the Tesco ‘Yours for a Year’ competition.
Caroline Peach, Retail Manager for St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice, said:
“We are delighted by how well our hospice shop has been received by the local community who have continued to support us since our competition win. Our first year trading has been extremely successful with over 25,000 items sold and turnover in excess of £105,000.
“The shop has proven to play a vital role in funding the work of the hospice and the prime location has provided our supporters with an easy way to get involved. After taking all this into consideration, we decided to renew our lease with Tesco and continue to rent the shop for at least another year.”
Alex Boak, Store Manger at Tesco Lincoln Extra, said:
“We are delighted that St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice is celebrating its first year by renewing its lease with Tesco. We wanted to create a space for the community with our redeveloped Wragby Road store and help provide opportunities for local young people by offering a unit rent-free for a year for a charity or community group.
“The fact that the St Barnabas store has gone on to be a successful and self-sustaining operation is testament to why we decided to run ‘Yours for a Year’ competition in the first place. We are particularly pleased that over the past year, the store has supported two retail apprentices in completing their studies and ultimately provided them with permanent employment.
“We hope that St Barnabas Lincolnshire Hospice continues to enjoy the same success in the coming year.”
The hospice operates 26 shops across Lincolnshire and is committed to providing a high quality shopping experience and to maximising the money raised in each shop. Like many of the other shops the Wragby Road shop is run by a mixture of paid staff and volunteers.
Caroline said:
“Our management team at Wragby Road are looking forward to building on the shops first successful year. They have been working hard as part of a team alongside our dedicated volunteers who have donated 3,000 hours of their time.”
The hospice shop has also supported two apprentices in their studies with both completing their NVQ Level 1 in Customer Service.
Caroline concludes:
“The shop has allowed us to continue to grow and support our local community and we are extremely grateful to everyone who has supported us, either by donating their unwanted goods or purchasing items from us.
“We are looking forward o the year ahead and continuing to provide our customers with the products they want.”