00:00Hi there, I'm Tracey Morgan. I'm the co-manager of Wear and Share Leeds and we run the Leeds School
00:05Uniform Exchange.
00:06Basically, we started the Leeds School Uniform Exchange about six years ago,
00:10basically taking donations of unwanted outgrown uniform and passing it on to families that need it.
00:17It's all good quality and it saves it ending up as textile waste.
00:21When we started six years ago, it was fairly small. It started off really in my back room and now
00:27we have a warehouse.
00:28So the need for it has definitely increased, what with the financial crisis families are suffering with.
00:35And people are very generous. They donate their unwanted uniform rather than ending up in the bin.
00:41So we quite happily take it. And I think last year we gave out over 26,000 items in the
00:47year.
00:49Just in the Miriam Centre alone last year, we gave out over 3,000 items to 300 families.
00:54So, and we're here again. We've got bigger premises, more uniform has been brought in.
00:59So we're hoping to beat that target this year.
01:02I'm Debbie Binersley and I'm the co-manager at Wear and Share Leeds.
01:05I've been with Wear and Share now about, well, about a year for the charity and three years for the
01:10actual campaign itself
01:11for the Leeds School Uniform Exchange.
01:13This is our second year in the Miriam Centre now and we've become better this year as well.
01:19They've been able to get generic school uniforms, polo shirts, skirts, pinnifors, we've got piquet and then this year we've
01:27added shoes and coats as well into what we've been able to offer.
01:30The sizes go from three up to adult sizes in the majority of the uniform.
01:37So we're in the Miriam Centre. Generally during the summer holidays, it's Mondays and Saturdays, 10 till 3.
01:42We're upstairs on the first floor in the balcony bit, just as you come off the escalator you'll see us.
01:48But we're also at 10 Breeze events, Breeze in the Park events this year.
01:53We've had comments about how helpful the scheme is because it's just, it's so expensive to get the kids out
02:00for school.
02:01And also for some of the smaller ones with the, obviously they go through uniform a lot, particularly the teenagers.
02:07But yeah, it's been good and it is great to see families coming in and just being able to save
02:13themselves some money really.
02:14It's definitely hard work. Yesterday it was one of those days where nothing seemed to go perfectly right.
02:20But then seeing the people coming into there and everyone being just so grateful that they'll be able to come
02:25in and get what we need, it does make it all worth it in the end.
02:28It is great to talk to the families when they come here. In fact, we've just met a family that
02:32were here last year.
02:33The girls have grown, so they need a bigger size uniform. It was great that they came back.
02:39But yeah, we do have a lot of recurring people coming.
02:42It's just a great initiative, you know, rather than spending money on buying new, which has its own environmental impact
02:48by buying new.
02:50It's recycling and it's giving families a bit of extra spending money, whether that be to pay a bill, to
02:56buy some food or just to do something fun with the kids in the summer holidays.
02:59We'll see you guys.
02:59We'll see you guys.
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