Charities count cost of closure as they plan for shops reopening
Charities have welcomed the news that their shops can reopen next month – but have revealed losses running to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
All non-essential shops had to close their doors to customers when the coronavirus pandemic began.
That broke off a main source of income for groups such as Acorns Children's Hospice, Katharine House Hospice and Newlife.
Charity bosses are now busy drawing up plans for the stores to reopen safely, after the Government announced this week that non-essential shops can reopen from June 15.
Acorns Children's Hospice has been losing roughly £100,000 a week while its 55 charity shops have been closed.
The Walsall hospice launched its Save Acorns Black Country Hospice Appeal last summer which has now raised £700,000 of its £2 million target.
Gary Pettit, head of retail at Acorns, said it was "a bit scary to say the least" when their shops had to close.
"With the loss of income we've furloughed the majority of our shop staff and have had no income which is a huge burden," he added.
"We're in the process of getting our reopening plans signed off, we want to open shops as close to the 15th as possible as funds are vital to the organisation.
"The supermarkets have set out what we can do, although some of our shops are very small.
"We will have hand sanitisers and aprons and masks for volunteers and staff."
Mr Pettit has also appealed for more volunteers to sign up ahead of the shops reopening next month.
He said: "The safety of both staff and volunteers is paramount to our planning.
"Volunteers are the absolute lifeblood of our business and without them we can't sustain our business."
Meanwhile, Katharine House Hospice chief executive Richard Soulsby said about £200,000 in income has been lost.
He said: "It's not really the first quarter of the year, it's more July August and September and whether retail revenues will be returning.
"We've had donations of PPE from rotary clubs, which is a tremendous support helping with costs.
"We are getting some Government support but most of that is offsetting the costs incurred.
Generous
"General fundraising revenues have fallen because we're not putting on events, and funerals aren't as well attended so donations in memory of loved ones aren't as high.
"But the donations haven't fallen as much as we'd expected and there have been some generous donations from people of about £1,000 or more."
Two of the larger stores, the Norton Bridge Big Shop and the Stafford Big Shop, will be reopening on June 15, and others will follow in the weeks after.
Mr Soulsby added: "We will learn a lot about what works and doesn't from these, and we will have shipping containers so people can donate items without seeing anyone else, which will stay there for 72 hours until it's safe to be processed.
"One of the requirements that we will have is people will have to wear a face covering.
"We will have some to sell but it will be helpful if people can take their own.
"There will be hand sanitisers and perspex shielding in the stores.
"There might be a queue system outside like supermarkets and there will be a flow of customers through the shop."
Sheila Brown, co founder and CEO of Newlife in Cannock, said they had been "desperate" for a date they could open the shops and it was "brilliant news" that they now had an opening date of June 15 they could work with.
"Within an hour of hearing from the government that we had this date, we had emails from eager customers asking when we were going to be open again. It's been so brilliant," she said.
"We've been desperate for a date, as it's very difficult to plan without one.
"The date gives us a real advantage and it's really picked everyone's spirits up too.
"We want to make sure it's completely safe to re-open, and as we are a heath charity, people will expect that. If our staff feel safe then our customers will feel safe. There's a lot of planning in place. We'd so love to welcome people back to the store when they do come."
