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Rescue & donations
Some of what we make never reaches a home: a return, a box that arrived dented, a colour we stopped making. It still does the one job it was made for. So it goes to someone who needs it, rather than to a skip.
Two channels
One takes up space, one pays for the space. Both start with something going wrong upstream.
Returns that cannot be resold, boxes that arrived dented, colours we retired. We check them, clean them, photograph them — then hand them to groups who asked for that exact thing.
Anything with a tired battery or a cracked joint goes to repair or recycling. It does not go into a box with a bow on it.
312 items this quarter
Two percent of every order, plus every shipping overcharge we catch, goes into a small fund. It pays for what a box of gadgets cannot: a van, shelf brackets, a year of insurance.
No salaries, no agency fees, no "administrative contribution". If a cost is ours, we cover it out of margin.
$4,860 this quarter
The path
The failure mode of a donations programme is a pallet in a back room nobody owns. So every box has a named person and a date on it.
Set aside at the bench, tagged with what is actually wrong with it.
Tested, cleaned, photographed. Broken parts repaired or stripped for spares.
Offered to the group that asked for that thing — not the nearest one.
Handed over in person where we can, posted where we cannot. Receipt either way.
This quarter
Three kinds of places, chosen because they can put a slightly imperfect object straight to work.
Openers, grips and lids for kitchens cooking two hundred meals a night, where a stiff jar is a real obstacle at seven in the evening.
Jar openers and cable tidies. The two hardest jobs in a care home turn out to be a tight lid and a charger nobody can tell apart.
Retired colours and dented stock, used as material to take apart and learn from rather than prizes to hand out.
The ledger
Published every quarter, including the rows that do not flatter us.
If a number looks small, that is because it is real. We would rather publish 312 than round it to "thousands".
Join in
Tick the box at checkout and a dollar joins the fund. Or tell us about a group near you that could use a box of useful things with a scratch on the lid.