A Holbeach charitable organisation has celebrated donating almost £27,000 since the start of the year.
Chosen Charity, which operates two shops in Holbeach and gives directly to local causes, shared out £26,980 between more than 20 causes between January 1 and August 1 this year, it was announced at its AGM last week.
Chosen was started by Mary Cooper and both shops are run by her daughters Lisa Clarke and Sammy Favell.
Sammy, who is manager of the Fleet Street branch, said of the 2019 total so far: “It’s amazing, we’re so thrilled.
“We’ve had a really good start to this year and hope it carries on getting bigger and better.”
This weekend both shops cleared their summer stock with a £2 bag sale, in which customers could fill a carrier bag with anything in the shop.
“It went brilliantly,” Sammy said. “Instead of putting the old stock away and bringing it out next year, we instead clear it. Our customers get bargains and we get
empty shelves.”
Sammy said after the sale the volunteers have worked over the weekend to restock the shops with all new items.
“We are so grateful to all our volunteers, the people who donate items to us and all our customers,” Sammy said. “We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without them.”
A lot of the good causes Chosen donates to comes from word of mouth, with customers telling staff about causes they think are deserving of charity cash.
Recently a customer suggested Chosen help Holbeach man Paul Hanlon on his way to university.
Chosen representatives gave Paul a cheque for £500 ahead of him setting off to University of East Anglia.
Paul (27) is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, spastic diplegia and facial palsy.
Language expert Paul has already learned French, Spanish and Portuguese, and is currently learning Polish and Japanese.
At university he is going to study languages and media – with his third year abroad. He said the money is going to his computer costs for uni. He’s not decided on what he’ll do after graduation but is considering a UN translator role or a job in business.
