Dirty underwear among items ‘donated’ to Horsham charity

Among items left at Horsham Matters’ donation centre in Blatchford Road have been broken crockery, mould-ridden kitchen utensils - and soiled underwear.

Horsham Matters operations manager Mike Pell said: “With lockdown, people have had more time on their hands and they’ve had a sort-out and unfortunately we have seen an increase in undesirable items.”

He said he thought some people were dumping their rubbish at the centre, instead of at Horsham’s waste tip, because of ‘laziness.’

“There have been reports of people queing for an hour and a half to get into the Hop Oast recycling centre. People think they can drop it here, or at any other charity, instead.”

He said he knew of similar problems at Southwater Children’s Society shop and the Salvation Army.

He said Horsham Matters was always delighted to receive items in a ‘reasonable condition’ that could be sold. “If it’s sellable, it’s fine. Some items end up in our superstore and we use the money from sales to fund our charitable work.”

The charity, which says it is thankful for people’s generosity, keeps a supply of second-hand goods, such as kitchenware, crockery and furniture, to help people who are housed in temporary accommodation.

“If items are not up to scratch we have to take them to the tip ourselves.” He said that proved time-consuming because they had to go to a Viridor site in Crawley.

The increasing number of donations has meant that Horsham Matters is now to extend opening hours at its superstore in Redkiln Way from July 20.

Donations can be made at Blatchford Road on Tuesday mornings from 9-10.30am and on Saturdays from 9-10.30am.

“We have a limited amount of storage space,” said Mike. “If we have too much we have to close our doors early, but if 20 per cent of the stuff isn’t usable, then we don’t have as much as we thought.”

To see which items can be donated and opening times, visit the charity’s website at www.horsham-matters.com

Horsham Matters

9 July at 10:25 ·

Hi all! We’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of household donations and your generosity and as such we are having to adjust our guidelines for donations. However every cloud has a silver lining as today we have decided that as of the 20th of July we are going to extend our shop hours by an hour! Please check the table below to see if we are open (feel free to screenshot for future reference so you don’t have to dig through Facebook)

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you all for your continued support and donations throughout this time!❤️

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We receive some fantastic items when we are open for donations, but we have a limited space for new items so sometimes we unfortunately have to cut the donation time frame short.

When bringing items to us please please follow the guidance on what we can accept.

Our last donation day saw some great bits like a Nintendo 64, and some great books for our shop, however we have had an increase in items not suitable for reuse. Broken plates and bowls, soiled underwear and kitchen utensils with mouldy food and grease on can not be used.

Thank you all, and we will see you on Tuesday morning for furniture donations.