We are 8! Happy Birthday Merry-go-round.
IT’S OUR 8TH BIRTHDAY! HERE IS WHAT YOU HAVE HELPED US ACHIEVE!
April 14, 2020
As the lock down continues and we all get used to this new norm, we have some exciting news to share with you! We turn 8 today! We would love nothing more than to celebrate with all of our loyal customers in our newly expanded shop and events space. However with everyone staying safe at home, we thought we would take a trip down memory lane and share how far we have came over the past eight years … all of which would not have been possible without you lot!
Some of you may remember that day in April 2012 when we opened our doors as a non-stop shop for quality pre-loved children’s goods. Our founder, Samantha Moir, set up the charity in response to becoming a mum and realising the amount of waste that having a small person brings, the environmental impact of this and the realisation of how much stuff is discarded having barely been used.
annnd you agreed with her! Since then we have re-homed 57 tonnes of goods, served over 54 thousand lovely customers and saved 174759 pre-loved items from being discarded. Not only through the shop but also though our MGR pop – up events!
In May 2015, we branched out and took our pre-loved stock out into new communities holding our very first pop shop in East Kilbride shopping centre. We’ve held various pop up shops after East Kilbride including; our RAMH pop up in Johnston, our Bridgeton community pop ups, most recently our REVOLVE Christmas pop- up in Silverburn and of course our partnership pop up events within vulnerable communities – which now also include a free taster workshop of our events! We have also brought you 5 mega sales at the Briggait, reaching many more of you city wide!
Since opening, we always wanted to do more to help vulnerable families in the city and in 2014 that became possible with the launch of our partnership programme. With the help of our first partnership officer we built relationships with many local charities to give the families they support free essential items. We now work with over 130 organisations including charities large and small, food banks, schools, churches and more providing over 70 free packs of goods per month, free parenting support workshops and our new ‘mini boutique’ style baby bank.
Who remembers our parenting room? What started off as a comfy space where families could pop in to feed, change and grab a cuppa has now grew three times in size and evolved in to a cheerful community hub and events space! From stretchy wraps classes to support groups for dads our events co-coordinator has done an amazingggg job at creating a full daily calender’s of activities with something for everyone. We’ve held 1761 events since we opened in 2012 and seen 13387 folk coming along.
It was not only our events space that got a make over when we closed for 12 weeks of building work, refurbishment, painting and all things DIY! Our shop did too!
The main reasons we decided to take the leap and expand the shop was so we could provide families with more choice and variety while maintaining the quality shopping experience we are known for. On Saturday the 20th of July 2019 we finally opened the doors to our refurbished shop where we saw 142 of you come in to see the new shop in all its glory! Quickly following this at the end of August 2019 our new events space was opened by none other than our first minister, Nicola Sturgeon!
Volunteers are a valued part of our MGR family and have been with us since the beginning…did you know our shop manager actually started out as a volunteer? Every month we welcome both individual and corporate volunteers to our spaces. We currently have 10 regular volunteers helping support our donations team, eBay store, partnership and more! While welcoming groups in from organisations such as Barclays, Tesco and Teleperformance!
All of this work would not have been possible without the support of all our lovely customers choosing to shop with us and attending our events, so on this birthday where we cannot welcome you into our spaces to spend it with us, we wanted to take this time to reflect and say a massive Thank you!
Here’s to the next 8 years!
The MGR Team x