Frome Rotary Charity Shop closes after £37,000 fundraising success

Our Pop-up Charity shop closes after £37,000 fundraising success

Frome Rotary’s latest pop-up charity shop has closed after raising £37,000 in five months, with proceeds supporting Fair Frome, the WHY Appeal, the Frome Skatepark project, the End Polio Now campaign and Rotary supported charities.

The club, which celebrated the centenary of its charter in Frome in December, opened the shop in the former Post Office premises as part of its centenary programme. To support Fair Frome, members purchased £100 of goods each week for the food bank, providing a total of £2,600 by Christmas. This support has continued into this year with a further £1800 being donated by purchasing foodstuffs and goods much in need by this critical charity in Frome.

Although the original plan had been to close the shop after Christmas as stock levels fell, the club decided to continue after learning of the WHY Appeal. Richard Lines, President of Frome Rotary, said: “We met WHY CEO Lucy Kitchener and decided to keep the shop going. We appealed for donations from the Frome community and dedicated all proceeds to WHY for the seven weeks leading up to the end of the appeal in March.”

Following an intensive fundraising effort led by Andrew and Anne Prince and Jo Allum, £12,850 was donated to the WHY Appeal, making a significant contribution to the charity’s campaign.

Maybrook Properties, owners of the Westway Centre, who have supported the shop over several years, later informed the club that there was interest from prospective tenants for the unit.

With closure planned for early May, Frome Rotary chose to dedicate the shop’s final weeks of trading to additional causes. For two weeks, all proceeds were donated to the new Frome Skatepark project, which the club had agreed to support as a charity partner, raising £3,700.

Rotary’s long-running End Polio Now campaign remains one of the organisation’s most significant international causes. Over the past 40 years, global cases have fallen by 99 per cent, but the risk remains because of continuing cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To coincide with World Immunisation Week, proceeds from the shop were also donated to End Polio Now, with £2,600 raised and set to increase to £7,800 through match funding from the Gates Foundation.

Andrew Prince, Rotarian and local retired retailer, said: “The success of the shop would not have been possible without the support of Maybrook Properties and Paul Bairstow, our local man with a van. But it is the support from the Frome community that has made the shop so special. The response to news of its closure shows the impact it has had over the years, not only by helping to raise funds, but also by offering value, encouragement