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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Andy Robinson & Matthew Dresch

Charity shop stunned after anonymous donor gives them £60k of designer clothes

A generous shopper gave £60,000 worth of designer clothes to a charity shop, which is now selling the items at rock bottom prices.

An anonymous woman donated brands such as Prada and Mulberry to the Mind branch in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, on Wednesday.

Store manager Alison Homewood said the same woman had handed other over bags of designer goods in the past, although none of the donations matched the value of the latest load.

Mrs Homewood told Kent Live : "It's a regular donor who is incredibly generous to us, we recognise her and we know her but we don't know her name because it's not necessary.

Alison Homewood with one of the donated items at the Mind store (KMG / SWNS.com)
More than £60,000 worth of clothes were donated by the generous shopper (KMG / SWNS.com)

 

"We see her and we are very happy. She gives it to us, we rub our hands and get cracking.

"I want to tell her thank you and hope to see you soon, please - thank you, thank you, thank you.

"We are very grateful for her generosity but also for the generosity of everybody else who donates to us.

"Whether people leave with a 50p item or £100 item, it's money in the till for the charity and we want people to leave happy so they want to come back.

Customer Margaret Mercer inspecting one of the donated pieces (KMG / SWNS.com)
The Mind shop in Tunbridge Wells (GOOGLE)

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"Someone this morning said 'oh I'm sorry it's not £60,000 worth, it's just some of my son's old trousers' but I'm still happy."

Mrs Homewood used to split her time by also managing the Mind shop in Grosvenor Road before it closed down, now replaced by the restaurant Poppins.

The Mind store in the High Street has stood for 20 years and has taken around £2m in that time "because of the generosity of Tunbridge Wells".

Some of the garments in this donation still even have tags in while some shoes don't bear a single scuff to their sole.

They have now been marketed at the charity shop for around a half to the third of the price you would expect to pay in London.

Mrs Homewood kept the items back and put a special display out for maximum impact which clearly worked, as by this morning (April 26) there was only a quarter of the donation remaining.

"It's been absolutely manic and fabulous. We're exhausted and we've got loads of money in the till for helping the wonderful people that have got mental health problems," she added.

This money will go to the national Mind fund and then redistributed to local people, the closest being West Kent Mind in Sevenoaks or the group in Maidstone.

Amid the buzz of customers, one man entered asking if there was anything on sale with bumble bees on it to find out the only bee related item in the shop was a skirt costing £275.

He declined as he wasn't "brave enough" to pick out clothes for his wife.

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