The Leeds and Moortown Furniture Store will be celebrating thirty years of helping people in need in May. Fish and chips all round with plenty of salt and vinegar together with a mug of tea will be their novel way of commemorating the day. The guest list will include many of Leeds’s most influential citizens: councillors, MP’s, business leaders and the like.
It was in 1986 that a group of friends got together and began passing on their unwanted furniture to people in need. Then, the team, all members of Moortown Baptist Church used an old horse box for transport and for storage cellars and sheds. Today LMFS is a registered charity based in a ten thousand square foot warehouse, employing eight staff and handling more than five thousand items of donated furniture every year.
John Sherbourne, the charity’s Chair of Trustees says: “In many ways it’s sad that we’re still here. In reality, though, the demand for our services – the need – is as great as ever.”
This is a sentiment endorsed by John Gamson, the Store’s General Manager: “John’s right, we work in partnership with dozens of local organisations… from Leeds City Council to some quite small community groups and day after day they ask us for some of the most basic items of household furniture: a bed, a sofa, a dining table, a cot, a wardrobe – all things so many of us take for granted.
“On the day” says John Sherbourne, “our plan is not to ask our guests for money but simply to ask them to enjoy their lunch and to take on board that what they see is quite literally what they, or more accurately what our clients get.”
Anyone who wants to donate furniture can do so by calling 0113 2739727 or via the Store’s website www.leedsandmoortown.org.uk.
