A TRAIL-BLAZING community shop which has helped thousands of people in Crewe's deprived West End is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a move to larger premises.
The Castaways Community Shop will be opened on Friday morning at 123-125 West Street, the site of the old Parton's hardware store.
It has outgrown its cramped former home at 131 West Street.
The charity managing director, Barbara Jones said: 'We badly needed to make the move because we were at bursting point and we needed somewhere bigger.
'It is a nice way to mark our 10th anniversary like this. The basic aim of the charity is to support people within the West End of Crewe with the money we make helping all sorts of social, educational and community projects. Over the years we have gone from strength to strength.'
The idea of a community shop was the brainchild of West End resident Gina Smith. At the time she was unemployed and referred to a community action programme.
Gina made contact with various organisations and the Cheshire County Council's community development department offered help and advice and also helped to raise initial monies to start up the project.
The West End Project helped with support and a new shop in the area called West Enders offered Gina space for one clothes rail to try out the new idea and the charity took off from there.
Not knowing what to call the new community shop, they enlisted the help of the Victoria Community High School pupils who organised a competition. The result was that Cast-aways was born.
Due to the success of the clothes rail in the West Enders shop, Castaways was able to move to a shop of its own at 131 West Street.
Normal prices at the shop are low, but to make more room real bargains can be picked up in the '50p' sales.
Castaways has helped thousands of people over the past 10 years dealing with problems ranging from supplying food and clothes to families escaping domestic violence.
