To help us as increase the capacity of our charity and support the problems associated with long term unemployment in our immediate area, we have been fortunate to secure additional funding from the Area Action Partnership 4Together.........for more see the Unit 18 page

New Personnel

As part of our expansion, we have two new members of staff.

Martin Jewkes has taken over responsibility for all of our front office activities. Martin will be developing the valuable work he does for our charity in coordinating our daily collection and delivery service and using his organisational skills to the best effect in 2012.

Extended Opening Hours

Now that we see an average of 2,000 visitors every month, we have increased our opening hours to:
Monday - Friday 10am-3pm...Saturdays 10am-2pm and additionally we will be open till 5pm on Fridays over the summer period........more details soon

Expansion Plans

For many years, County Durham Furniture Help Scheme has provided essential support to families from its base in Chilton. Although we have grown at our current location, the next exciting stage in our development is to open a new unit based on our Chilton model in the Teesdale/Weardale area. Teesdale for example is home to 24,500 people spread across a vast. This move will bring our facilities closer to individuals living in the Counties more remote locations
More information will be issued in January..........................

Cllr Brian Avery (Chair of the 4 Together Partnership) said:

 “We're extremely pleased to see such a worthwhile project creating employment and training opportunities in the 4 Together area. Like other areas we face problems of unemployment and the more we can do to support our local residents into work the better. We're pleased to be creating opportunities like these on our doorstep as it allows us to provide opportunities for our community while supporting a really valuable local charity. We hope the scheme will prove extremely popular and will be of benefit to many people in our community. As chair of the 4 Together Partnership I'm pleased that we're developing such important schemes that will provide as many opportunities for local residents as possible.”