Oban residents who are giving their homes a spring clean are being asked to make donations to the local Mary’s Meals charity shop and help feed hungry children around the world.
Items which are no longer wanted by one person can prove useful to another.
Now the popular shop on Stevenson Street has reopened following the easing of national lockdown restrictions.
A range of measures has been introduced to ensure the safety of customers, volunteers and staff which include social distancing, limiting the number of people in the shop, providing hand sanitising facilities and using Perspex screens at till points.
Jennie McMaster, manager in the Mary’s Meals Oban shop, said: “By clearing out their cupboards and shopping with us here in Oban, people can make a real difference to the lives of hungry children around the world. Spring is the perfect time for folk to free their homes of clutter and donate any items they no longer need to us.
“I am so pleased that our shop has reopened and we can’t wait to welcome customers once more.”
The Mary’s Meals charity shop accepts a wide variety of donations including clothes, books, pots and pans.
However, it is unable to accept pillows and duvets, video and music cassettes, large items of furniture, car seats, push chairs and prams, safety equipment, perishable goods, items made with real fur or ivory, candles without instructions, and non-CE marked toys.
People wishing to donate items are being asked to contact the Mary’s Meals shop directly on 01631 566884 to arrange a date and time to drop off their donation.
Mary’s Meals – founded in Argyll in 2002 – now feeds more than 1.8million chronically poor school children in 19 countries.
It normally provides one daily meal in a place of learning in order to attract impoverished children into the classroom, where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
Last year, as schools across the world began to close amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, the charity had to adapt quickly to ensure hungry children did not go without and started distributing food in communities for the little ones who rely on Mary’s Meals to eat at home
Some schools have since reopened and the charity is safely reaching hungry children with Mary’s Meals, whether at school or at home.
It costs just £15.90 to feed a child in school with Mary’s Meals for an entire school year.