I’m from Wythenshawe and was looking for a job a little bit closer to home as I was working in Warrington at the time. Within days of looking, I found Emmaus, applied for the Driver & Retail Assistant role, went for an interview and fortunately, got the job.
Emmaus South Manchester is within a mile and a half of my home which is perfect for my circumstances. I started with the charity in spring 2023 and the first thing I noticed was that it was quite a big operation for the size of the team. Soon enough, I found that with everyone doing a little bit of everything, working as a team, it functioned well.
I had driven a van before so on the delivery and collection side of things, I have plenty of experience. Furniture handling was new though but I picked it up quickly and straight away, I really enjoyed the day-to-day running. Meeting new people, helping people out – at Emmaus, not only is it a job, but you also get to help people who need help.
Our expanding Emporium
When I first started, the Emporium charity store was only open Thursday to Saturday. We would go out on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to do deliveries and collect furniture donations, and also restock the shop. For the rest of the week, it was then a mix of deliveries, collections and helping out in the shop.
Fast forward to now, the Emporium is open on a Wednesday too, so Monday is predominantly deliveries, Tuesday is collections, and the rest of the week is odd deliveries, collections and helping in the shop. I’m also now trained to do portable appliance testing so any bit of time I get, I’m electrical safety testing donated appliances.
Since I started, Emmaus South Manchester has definitely become busier. There’s a lot more items coming in the door and a lot more going out the door. There are a lot more customers visiting our Emporium too. In the mornings, it has gone from 3 or 4 people queueing to 20 or sometimes 30 or more people queueing up before the doors open. Our Emporium can be very social on some days. We have customers who come in every day and often they’ll have a half an hour chat before they look at anything to buy. For some people, it’s a little bit of a social and it gets them out of their house socialising.
I like the driving because it’s what I’ve done for quite a while now. At Emmaus, I like the variety that a driving job like this brings – different people, items, houses, locations and challenges. On an average week, we probably do between 30 and 40 collections and deliveries. Our record is 44 in a week which, considering the items and that it’s usually condensed into about three days, is pretty good going.
Supporting people in need
At Emmaus, we’re doing different things to support people in need, under the banner of solidarity. There’s a lady who comes in and helps people who have suffered domestic abuse and we’ve been referred a few people who needed items for their new homes. We find out what items they need and usually we try to provide everything we can, subject to what we have in stock on any given week. Furniture, washing machines, dryers, fridges, curtains, cushions – we try and make it as easy as possible for them in their time of need.
Supporting people via solidarity is definitely a satisfying part of my role. I’m born and bred in Wythenshawe, and you can see that a lot of people around are struggling. To actually be involved within an organisation helping those people gives me a lot of satisfaction.
Building a new community
Before I started at Emmaus, I’d probably never been in a charity shop. I’d never really considered buying furniture or other items from a charity shop. I would say, if you’ve never been in Emmaus, come in, have a look round and you’ll be surprised at the range and quality of items on offer. As my colleague Gavin says, we don’t sell cheap furniture, we sell good quality furniture cheap!
My hope for the future of Emmaus South Manchester is to carry on in the same direction as we’re going and hopefully soon get the community off the ground. We want to expand our services and to progress in a way which suits everyone involved in our charity and the surrounding community.
My message to our supporters is keep up the good work – keep coming in, keep donating and keep buying those items. It’s a great cause and our customers get great joy from knowing that their support is helping us grow towards our greater goal. I think everybody that’s involved in Emmaus and our customers get a lot of satisfaction from seeing us expand.