Kirkcaldy pub stages swap shop fundraiser for foodbank

Staff at The Duchess are organising the event to collect money for Kirkcaldy Foodbank.

The swap shop will take place in the Nicol Street pub on Thursday, January 30 from 7 to 10pm. People can also bring along donations of non-perishable tinned and dried food for the foodbank.

Carla Temple (23), who works part-time at The Duchess and is studying a post-grad in primary teaching at Dundee University, explained where the idea came from: “I have been doing an essay on poverty in Scotland as part of my studies and looking at the statistics it is clear there are a lot of families in crisis with more and more relying on foodbanks,” she said.

“We were talking about it at work and thinking about what we could do to help local families.

“Toni (who also works at The Duchess) and I have been to a swap shop before so we thought why don’t we do one here? We spoke to our boss about it and she thought it was a great idea.”

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Toni Alderdice (34) said they want locals to go through their wardrobe and pick out five pieces of good quality clothing they won’t wear again, and bring it along to The Duchess before January 23.

When they bring their items, they will exchange them for a ticket priced £7. They then come along to The Duchess on January 30; browse through the items and pick five pieces of clothing to take home.

Toni said: “We want to stress to people that the clothing needs to be here before the event because we want to have all the clothes on rails. We will be organising it so we have around five or ten people looking at the items at a time. We will also be having a raffle on the night with local businesses donating prizes.”

Carla continued: “We don’t want underwear or swimwear, but it can be any other items. The swap shop is also for adults only so no childrenswear and we want clothes for men and women.”

She added: “There were foodbank appeals before Christmas and that’s why we decided to have the swap shop in January so people don’t forget as there are many families who still really need it.”