Huddersfield charity giving away free school uniform now helping more than 200 pupils in just one school

A Huddersfield charity which provides free school uniform is helping 230 pupils in just one Kirklees school as the financial crisis continues to take a terrible toll on family budgets.

Uniform Exchange was set up to help families struggling to buy school uniform and the demand on its services has grown massively in recent years.

Over the last 12 months it’s helped just over 10,000 pupils – around 15% of all Kirklees school children – and double the number it helped in 2022.

The charity has helped all 182 schools across Kirklees in 2023, saving parents almost £1m, and the largest family Uniform Exchange supports has nine children. It’s helped 4,000 pupils, giving away around 40,000 items of school uniform in just three months this year – June, July and August – which has kept around 8 tonnes out of landfill, saving the planet 40 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

So far in 2024, Uniform Exchange has given away more than 6,000 bags of school uniform which would stretch for 2 miles from its base at Lockwood to Luck Lane Primary Academy in Paddock.

Uniform Exchange founder and project director Kate France said: “The demand is growing at an incredible pace but the community rallies around and continues to donate tens of thousands of items of school uniform to us every year.

“Uniform Exchange has now become a major logistical exercise and our running costs are way beyond £100,000 a year but we have a fantastic team of volunteers and staff who have risen to the challenge and go above and beyond every day to ensure families get the uniform they need.

“Kirklees has several areas which are classed in the 10% most deprived areas in the country and we are seeing an upsurge in need from those areas where the cost-of-living crisis continues to make life incredibly difficult for families. We are now helping 230 children in just one Kirklees school alone.”

 

 

 

The Lockwood-based charity has a team of more than 30 volunteers who gave 10,227 hours of their time in 2023, the equivalent of 1,278 workdays.

Government guidelines say all schools must ensure that parents can access secondhand uniforms and should publish details on their website. To help schools do this in Kirklees, Uniform Exchange has set up a project called Sustainable Exchange where schools host their own pop-up school uniform giveaways, often organised by the pupils themselves.

Last year 22 schools set up 50 events in Kirklees, helping 1,388 children by giving away school uniform worth £26,812 to families.

The charity’s aim is for no school uniform to ever go into landfill in Kirklees which is why it has dozens of collection points at supermarkets, libraries, community centres and other places throughout the borough.

If people give school uniform to charity shops then the shops are encouraged to pass it on to Uniform Exchange and every item of lost property left in Kirklees sports centres is sent to Uniform Exchange if no-one collects it within three weeks.

This means the charity can provide vital sports kit alongside school uniform and Uniform Exchange also gives out winter coats, hats, scarves and gloves along with shoes, socks and underwear.

One parent described Uniform Exchange as: “The best initiative in Huddersfield. Saves me a fortune, is fantastic for the environment and gives kids a starting understanding of reusing and recycling.”

Another added: “Don’t be embarrassed about using secondhand uniform. It’s in great condition, no-one has to know and the Uniform Exchange staff are lovely.”

 

 

The charity was visited by the Mayor of Kirklees, Clr Nosheen Dad, who was amazed at the scale of the logistics operation.

“The work this charity does within the community is absolutely fantastic,” she said. “They saw there was a real need and then have done so much to meet that need which is continually growing to the point Uniform Exchange is now helping 10,000 children across Kirklees every year which is truly amazing.”

The charity has its own fundraising shop which has moved from a portable building at the charity’s base off Burbeary Road in Lockwood to a bigger space beneath its warehouse on the same site.

Simply called The Charity Shop, it sells secondhand clothes – some are designer labels such as North Face and Berghaus – for just a few pounds along with games, books and bric-a-brac.

Shop manager Danni Jones said: “We sell everything really cheap to bring money into the charity but also to make sure there is a continual changeover of stock.”

Customer Sophie Wood, of Marsh, said: “I donate to the shop just about every week but also buy from it most weeks too as there are always plenty of new items on the rails and it’s so much cheaper than some other charity shops which now charge high prices. The staff are so friendly too.”

The shop is open every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10am to 3pm and on the last Thursday of the month people can fill a bag for a fiver which is stock that’s not sold over the previous month. The other staff who work in the shop are Tasha Dean and Bushra Sharif.

People wanting free school uniform need to fill in a quick online form on the Uniform Exchange website at School Uniform Support Huddersfield | Uniform Exchange (uniform-exchange.org)