Church run charity Community Link on Cradley Heath high street run a Uniform Bank in the school summer holidays where they give out second-hand school uniform for free. The uniform is available to anyone in the community that wants it, and the charity report hundreds of local families now use the service every year.
Community Link was originally set up in partnership with St John’s Church in Dudley Wood with support from our Diocese and Church Urban Fund but has since developed into a flourishing deanery project and CIO that aims to serve the local community through a variety of Christian and charitable initiatives including a food bank, cafe, shop and worship groups.
Many of these were started in response to requests from the local community. This was also the case with the Uniform Bank, originally a request for donations of school uniform was shared by Community Link in response to one parent asking for help, which resulted in lots of donations.
Community Link now advertise for donations for the Uniform Bank every year through social media and the local schools. Volunteers help sort the donated uniform by gender, colour and size and where possible create packs of two or three similar items. Community Link then hold several different days in the school summer holidays where the packs and other items are laid out on tables and anyone can visit and take what they need. These days are advertised on their Facebook page, through signage in local shop windows and via word-of-mouth.
Some of the uniform is also shared with other nearby charities and community groups such as Tipton Community Centre, so that other communities can 
also benefit.
It was originally the idea of LLM Canon Kath Davis who was instrumental in setting up the scheme and running it for the first three years, although fellow volunteer Stella Price is now the driving force behind it.
Kath Davis said:
“Community Link is all about Christian kindness in action, wherever there is a need in the local community we look to respond. We have people coming here to use the foodbank or get debt advice, it’s great to be able to offer further help via our uniform bank as well. School uniform can be so expensive at what is a costly time of year anyway, whilst other children will have grown out of uniform or be moving on to other schools. It’s a way we can help lots of people practically and economically and it helps safeguard the environment too.”
Find out more about Community Link here: https://www.cofe-worcester.org.uk/news/community-link-expansion-following-move-to-new-premises.php
Pictures: Worcester Diocese Board of Finance run a scheme where each member of staff in the diocesan office can use up to 7 paid hours to volunteer for a charity of their choice. Recently a team of staff from the diocesan office used their funded charity hours to sort the uniform donations at the Uniform Bank, creating the packs of clothing for parents to collect.
