Volunteers from a Huddersfield chemical company have helped out at Uniform Exchange as demand on the charity soars to record levels.
Lubrizol provided 12 staff members over two days to help the charity catch up with the demand for its services which is already 40% up this year so more volunteers are always needed at Uniform Exchange’s office and warehouse in Lockwood.
Lubrizol, which makes chemicals for a wide range of products from paint and engine oil to beauty products, is based on the Syngenta site on Leeds Road and also has another works in Barnsley.
The dozen volunteers included Paul Mellor, who is senior plant manager for both sites, which together employ 60 people. Lubrizol is a global company with its headquarters in Ohio, USA.
Sinéad Quinn from the Huddersfield site said: “We were certainly busy during our time volunteering with Uniform Exchange and were amazed at just how much uniform goes through the charity every day.
“There is clearly a very big need for the work the charity does and we were just so pleased to help in any way we could.”
This involved unloading bags full of donated uniform, sorting and carefully checking them for stains and damage before deciding what needed washing or mending and what could go straight onto the racking system to then go out to people needing free school uniform.
Uniform Exchange founder Kate France said: “We are facing a big increase in demand for free school uniform at the moment which is around 40% higher than last year already so we think we may be helping at least 7,000 children this year.
“People are donating lots of uniform in the Uniform Exchange collection bins spread throughout Kirklees and we’d like to thank them for every item they give us which not only helps families in need but also keeps tonnes of school uniform out of landfill.
“We always need more volunteers so to have the 12 people from Lubrizol with us for a couple of days helped us to make a big dent in the pile of donations we have to sort through, ensuring more items are now available for us to send off to families who have requested them.”
Lubrizol like to do volunteering days four times a year and have previously helped with a river clean-up near Huddersfield town centre and Huddersfield charity Project Youth Cancer, formerly the Laura Crane Youth Cancer Trust.
If anyone needs volunteers on a one-off basis they can contact Sinéad by email at Sinead.quinn@Lubrizol.com or phone her on 01484 467377.
The 12 Lubrizol staff taking part were: Chris Hart-Jones, production manager in Barnsley; Rhian Kelly, HSE compliance engineer; Paul Mellor, senior plant manager Barnsley and Huddersfield; Paul Burke, production planner in Huddersfield; Tracy Walker, UK planning supervisor; Faiza Mahmood, process chemist; Hannah McAliskey, supply planning raw materials; Sinéad Quinn, toll manufacturing and intracompany planner; Janice Senior, planning and plant support officer; Khairi Abu Bakar, quality control analyst; Richard Malia, environmental engineer in Barnsley; and Steven Hinchliffe, Barnsley operations support officer.
Anyone wanting to volunteer for Uniform Exchange should phone 07955 724789 or email info@uniform-exchange.org
- Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content and copywriting.
