At Newlife we’re always striving to do our best, not only for the disabled children and their families that are the focus of the charity, but for the communities that shop in our stores that flock to us for brand new high-street bargains too. That’s why we are so proud to be shortlisted for not just one, but two business awards!

The Third Sector Business Charity Awards aims to celebrate the extraordinary things that charities and their partners achieve when they work together in meaningful ways.

Newlife’s first nomination is for the charity’s work with iconic Superdry, which has been a partner of Newlife since 2016, working to transform their stock donations into environmental and social impact. The initiative supports Superdry’s zero-to-landfill commitment by diverting stock from landfill or incineration – which so far stands at nearly 100,000 garments – diverting reusable product to generate sustainable income for Newlife.

Superdry stock has exceeded £2 million in stock value over the last ten years – helping to fund life-changing equipment for disabled children and supporting services including a Nurse Helpline for families to call. This partnership clearly demonstrates how surplus stock can reduce textile waste, generate unrestricted charitable income and deliver real measurable environmental and social impact.

The second nomination is in the best response to the cost-of-living crisis category and is the result of an initiative which saw potential waste transformed into helping communities by selling brand-new uniform items donated by high street retailers, including Matalan, which prevented them from going to landfill.

The donation of stock to Newlife from Matalan came after a packaging redesign, with the brand generously donating their excess school uniform stock and saleable returns to Newlife to be sold through their nine retail stores.

These donations serve as an alternative to sending the items to landfill or recycling, ensuring that stock which is of a saleable quality reaches a new audience of customers, rather than going to waste. This allowed local families to benefit from affordable, high-quality school uniform essentials at a time when the rising cost of uniform was a significant concern for families struggling to cope with the cost-of-living crisis.

But, whether or not Newlife win either of the Business Charity Award sections it has been shortlisted for when the results are revealed on May 7, we know that we will continue to find meaningful ways to help our retail partners in their quest for sustainability as well as provide our local communities with affordable options when prices seem to be rising everywhere at an alarming rate.

Retail partners and customers for our stores are both so important when to comes to our mission to help families with disabled children, because without them, we wouldn’t have been able to provide the life changing equipment and support for so many disabled children and their families who often have nowhere else to turn.