New Peterborough charity shop opens- vowing to serve refugees for free

Directors of Support the World charity- Andrzej Szymczak, Damian Wawrzyniak and Darren Ferreday.

The ‘Second Chance’ charity shop opened earlier this month on 41 Bridge Street; the unit formerly occupied by Velluur; following its move to Westgate Arcade.

The shop has been opened by the Support the World charity; which was set up earlier this year by Damian Wawrzyniak, Darren Ferreday, Andrzej Szymczak, Dan Zenchuk and Klaudia Zalusznieweska.

The charity has been focusing its efforts mostly on supporting victims of the Ukraine crisis by delivering aid to the country, but have also been supporting the homeless in Peterborough and remain committed to supporting vulnerable individuals, displaced people and refugees across the world.

For this reason, the charity shop will be accepting donations and selling these items on at a reasonable price but they will not be charging refugees, of any kind, a penny for what they need.

Given the success in the early weeks of business, the charity already has plans to operate at the Sawtry Carnival next month and has been contacted by people interested in opening a similar store in Oxford.

Damian said: “We decided on the name the Second Chance as that’s what we want to offer people. Many people leaving are Ukraine have absolutely nothing and we want to help them.

"We decided to open the store as we thought there would be lots of refugees coming to Peterborough and we have manged to help several of the ones that have come.”

The shop is open between 10am and 4pm seven days a week and has already been well supported by donations. So much so, they are looking to recruit new staff.

Darren added: “We know we can’t help in a situation like this where so many people are affected but between this venture and similar shops in Poland we are doing what we can.

"People have been very generous and a lot of our items are almost brand new or actually are brand new. There are shoes that we can tell have never been worn and items still with tags on that people have clearly brought from other high street stores to donate to us.

"We really want to create a boutique shopping experience for all that come here.

To find out more about Support The World charity, visit https://www.supporttheworld.org.uk/.