It’s simply called The Charity Shop and the people who use it absolutely love the place.

The shop grew out of Lockwood-based charity Uniform Exchange which provides free secondhand school uniform to children across Kirklees.

It relies on thousands of people donating unused uniform at collection points across the borough and Danni Jones was volunteering at the charity.

She noticed people were also donating other clothes as well – many of them designer labels – and realised there may be scope to open a charity shop selling non-uniform donations.

Danni, who is now the shop’s voluntary manager, began with car boot sales, then moved into a portable building on the same site as Uniform Exchange off Burbeary Road in Lockwood but outgrew that and are now in premises directly underneath the charity’s offices and warehouse.

Since 2022 the shop has taken £39,000 in sales and just keeps on growing.

The reason is the prices are really low with dresses for £2.50, coats £3.50 and jeans £2.50 which means there is a quick turnaround of stock.

Anything that doesn’t sell within a month is put in tubs and every week the shop has a sale where people can fill a bag for a fiver with anything from the tubs.

It means there is always plenty of new clothes and bric-a-brac to browse every time customers pop in.

The shop is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 10am to 3pm.

Danni said: “I love volunteering and helping people and this is a real community charity which is why people love it and we have such a loyal customer base.

“We also keep some free school uniform in the shop and one lady burst into tears when we gave some to her she was so overwhelmed.”

The shop has just run its annual Christmas Gift Appeal which is a tree in the shop with 60 tags on it. People picked a tag and then provided a gift for the person on the tag. It only gives a brief description such as 11-year-old boy or 16-year-old girl but that’s enough for people to provide something appropriate.

The gifts were distributed through Newsome Food Bank – Danni is a member of Newsome Forum and does a lot of charity work in the area – and Thongsbridge Food Bank. The food banks have sorted the tags for youngsters they know live in poverty and really appreciated a present at Christmas.

The shop has a visitors’ book and the comments include: “An amazing charity shop, the best in Huddersfield by far” and “you guys are simply amazing, the best charity shop going.”

Danni said: “I’ve learned so much volunteering like this. I’d never managed a shop before so I’ve had to learn a lot of new skills as we’ve gone along.”

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, copywriting and ghost-writing autobiographies.