HDCC New Member : Welcome To Essential Needs
We are proud to announce that Essential Needs, an independent, self-funding charity operating throughout the Harrogate district has joined the Chamber.
Essential Needs provide much needed, and very valued support within our local community by providing good quality and low-price furniture, electrical appliances, household items as well as brand new beds to those experiencing furniture poverty.
The charity was stablished in 1995, and over the last three decades the team have helped improve the living conditions of over 12,000 people while also diverting nearly 2,000 tonnes of furniture and appliances from going to waste.
Essential Needs rely on generous donations from householders across the district, collecting unwanted items free of charge and offering them for sale from their warehouse in Harrogate. The store is open to the general public, but the charity does focus on people on low-income or means tested benefits (registered customers) who receive a 35% discount on their purchases. The charity also have long-standing partnerships with other local charities, including Harrogate Homeless Project (who are also a Chamber member), IDAS women’s refuge, Lifeline Harrogate and Ripon YMCA, forming a team that works to support some of the most vulnerable in our community.
The charity is run by a small group of staff but could not operate as successfully as they do without the reliable support of an outstanding team of volunteers and their governing board of trustees.
The charity told us: “Both staff and volunteers take great pride in the support we provide to new and regular customers and in seeing the improvements we can bring to their homes and lives. Many of our customers need a more secure home environment and we are as delighted as them when we can help achieve this.
Over the past five years our work has expanded significantly, both due to increasing demand and greater capacity within the organisation. We now support more than 650 registered customers each year and enable the reuse of approximately 150 tonnes of furniture/appliances.”
To find out more about the charity and their work with vulnerable residents within our area, please have a chat with one of the team at our meetings, or perhaps arrange to meet for a coffee. You never know where a chat might take you.
