Hill Cross Furniture, a family-run company based in North Yorkshire, is supporting Emmaus North East by donating furniture that would normally be scrapped.
Hill Cross Furniture supplies high quality, made to measure furniture to the hospitality, healthcare and commercial markets. The companies it works with often have a high turnover of furniture and instead of dismantling and scrapping the unwanted pieces, Hill Cross Furniture made the decision to donate them local charities and organisations where they can be repurposed and upcycled.
The donated furniture is either sold in Emmaus North East’s shops or used in the workshop where people that have previously experienced homelessness can learn new skills which could help them move into employment.
John Harrison, Executive Lead for Emmaus North East, said, “The partnership with Hill Cross Furniture means that our workshop is always supplied with materials that can be used to create new and interesting items out of wood that would have otherwise been scrapped. To date we have received over 200 chairs. These are then sold in our shops to raise funds for our community, with every penny going towards rebuilding the lives of formerly homeless individuals. The donations have also allowed some of the formerly homeless people we support to create a range of items, as well as learn new skills. These will go on to help them gain future employment in the industry.”
Richard Barker, Founder of Hill Cross Furniture, added, “We take great pleasure in working with a number of local charities. Our work with Emmaus North East involves donating second hand furniture that has come out of restaurants. The entire team at Hill Cross support this, it’s local, we are all Northern and it’s the right thing to do!”
Items are available to buy in the Emmaus North East workshop on St Hilda’s Industrial Estate, at their shops in Low Fell and Hebburn or online. Emmaus North East also undertakes commissions for customers to create bespoke items.