New charity shop near Skegness helps support community

The shop, 2nd Time Around has brought a redundant old chapel in Winthorpe back to live and is helping to raise funds to support families struggling with rising costs.

It is run by Winthorpe Community Partnership- a resident led collaboration between residents and service providers from NHS, council, police, Housing Association and others.

The Partnership operates out of two old Methodist Buildings, supported by the Methodist Church, with the aims of providing the community with more choice, more opportunities, increase local knowledge and skills, and make Winthorpe a happy, healthy, inclusive place to live.

Jodi Bradbury, Winthorpe Community Coordinator, explained: “In 2019 we refurbished the Old Seathorne Methodist Church and moved all of our groups and activities over there as it was a much bigger space and disabled friendly. The old Chapel became a bit redundant, especially as Covid hit and we had to close.

"Coming back from Covid and now with the energy prices going up, it has been a struggle.

"Our electric costs tripled and we needed to do something to bring in some revenue.

"We spoke to our community and decided that, as we were always being donated things, we could put them to good use and open a charity shop.

"We managed to find some local ladies to volunteer and run the shop and they set to work using social media to ask for donations, collect them and sort them.

"Local residents, caravan sites, and other shops all donated.”

A donation of £500 from Skegness Town helped buy the shelving, clothes rails and sign and the shop was officially opened by .the Mayor of Skegness, Coun Trevor Burnham. Jodi added: “Trevor has been a great supporter of what we do here in Winthorpe over the years, so it was nice that he could do this for us before his Mayoral term ends.”

In addition to raising funds, the Partnership intends to offer a referral system to help out people in need of kitchen items, plates, cutlery, pans, etc if setting up there first home, or struggling.

Opening hours of the shop are Wednesday, 12noon to 4pm, Thursday, 10am to 2pm, and Friday and Saturday, 10am to 4pm.

Anybody interested in volunteering should call Jodi on 07738997000.