Pallet Truck Shop has applauded the creativity and kindness of church workers from the Renew East London project, who are teaching homeless people to create furniture from discarded pallets in the hope that they can use their new-found skills to turn their lives around.
Money to set up the workshop was won by former homeless alcoholic Kaspar Parups, who learnt carpentry get himself off the streets. Kaspar pitched his idea in a Dragon’s Den style investment evening at the Bromley-by-Bow centre, and resultantly won £18,000 to set up the new initiative.
Phil Chesworth, Pallet Truck Shop Managing Director, said: “It’s brilliant to see old pallets being put to such as good use; thousands of them are thrown away each year and often end up in landfill sites.
“The fact that these brilliant people are using them to help the most unfortunate people in our society turn their lives around is wonderful. Hopefully other groups around the country can replicate such a fantastic idea and we can improve the lives of homeless people up and down the UK.”
Renew East London use pallets that they find on the streets and roads in the Shadwell area for their project. Homeless people then make the pallets into anything that their customers want, which is usually coffee tables, bookcases, chairs and shelves.
Proceeds from the sales of the furniture goes directly to the homeless people, and the main customers of the crafts are the numerous coffee shops in London who favour the ‘rough’ appeal of the tables.
Phil added: “As well as giving these people a trade that they can turn the life around with, it’s also putting money in their pockets which they can use to feed and clothe themselves in the immediate future.”
Pallet Truck Shop is one of the biggest retailers of manual handling equipment in the country, and offers regular and fast delivery from its centrally located Midlands warehouse. Products included in Pallet Truck Shop’s enormous product catalogue pallet trucks, moving skates, stackers, forklift fork extensions, sack trucks and more.