Council’s Children’s Centre provides school uniforms for 150 children
Thursday, 13 October 2022
A Central Bedfordshire Council Children’s Centre has helped provide school uniform to almost 150 local children.
Leighton Buzzard Children’s Centre hosted an event this summer, to provide pre-loved, branded items for most local schools, including PE kits and jumpers. The Centre also provided a selection of generic skirts, pinafores, trousers and dresses as well as coats, shoes, trainers, football boots and sportswear.
This is the third event the centre has held to give away uniforms to families. The idea began during the first lockdown when the Centre was approached by a parent who was struggling to afford a school uniform for her children.
The event relies on donations of pre-loved uniform which staff from the Children’s Centre collect during the summer holidays, and then sort and categorise. Morrisons in Leighton Buzzard also provided some brand-new items of underwear, socks and drinks bottles, and local school uniform supply shop Wear2School had a collection point in their shop and helped sort the uniforms and supplied some brand new items.
Generic uniform that was left over was shared with other Children’s Centres; nothing was wasted or sent to landfill.
Councillor Sue Clark, Executive Member for Families, Education and Children, said:
This year the Leighton Buzzard Children’s Centre were able to support around 80 families, providing pre-loved, good quality school uniforms. We were also able to provide some brand-new items, thanks to Morrisons and Wear2School, and we’re extremely grateful for their support. The staff at the Children’s Centre work hard to pull this together, as it takes time to collect and sort through the uniforms, before setting up the event. We have received some good feedback from parents saying it’s helped take some pressure off them, and we hope it’s also helped set our children up for the new term.
The Leighton Buzzard Children’s Centre hopes to run a similar event next year. Find out more about Central Bedfordshire Council’s Children’s Centres.