Up Cycle to help end abuse

Tauranga Women's Refuge Angie Warren Clarke (centre) with Up Cycle shop managers Nikki Bathe-Taylor and Vicki Wild who are all excited for the opening for the store. Photo / Ruth Keber

Tauranga Women's Refuge is opening an opportunity shop early next month after six months of searching for a premises.

Up Cycle will help provide the vital funds to keep the organisation running each month.

Tauranga Women's Refuge manager Angie Warren-Clarke said it remained to be seen if the shop, on the corner of Pooles and Cameron roads in Greerton, would prove to be financially viable.

It was being rented on a month-by-month basis, she said.

Ms Warren-Clarke hoped the op-shop would provide more revenue for the refuge.

"We still have to find $10,000 a month to keep [the refuge] running. The idea with this is 100 per cent of the profit of the shop will go back into the services for the refuge, like employing another staff member.

"I need another advocate."

The name Up Cycle was a play on words, to recycle second-hand clothing and the breaking the cycle of family violence seen in the Tauranga community.

The shop had been an idea of hers for more than a year and she was excited to see it coming to fruition.

Ms Warren-Clarke said the best of everything donated would be given to the refuge's families in need.

The shop would be run by volunteers, who she was still looking for. Eight volunteers, working across two shifts, would be needed each day.

Ms Warren-Clarke said she was not concerned about competition from the number of other second-hand shops in the Bay's op-shop capital, Greerton.

A VIP opening of the store was scheduled for February 8 for Tauranga Women's Refuge supporters and sponsors with a blessing to take place. The grand opening for the store would be 9am on February 9.

Call 0800 UP CYCLE if you have items to donate or wish to volunteer at the store.