About

On the night of Monday Thirtieth March, someone broke into our charity shop and stole from us. In total they took our donation tin, approximately six hundred pounds of cash, a laptop, a camera, a mobile phone as well as damaging our safe and our door. Because of the damage, and the fact we now need to increase our security, we have had to close the shop, losing another weeks worth of takings. Our insurance covers the laptop, camera, mobile phone, and the fixture of the safe. Our landlord is paying for the repairs to the door. In total we have lost approximately two weeks worth of takings, as well as the outgoing costs of having to increase our security measures. Thankfully no more damage was done to our shop. Our aims at the Ark, are to work in, with and for the community. Our loss is a loss to the entire community. This loss of income, could seriously impact the amount of money we can give back into the community in the form of grants. Our profit margins are small anyway, due to the fact that we offer goods at such a low price, in order to serve the needy in our community, so this money not only affects the shop, but it affects those who benefit from the money we provide. Brownie groups, small charities, clubs, schools, non-for-profit organisations; all of these rely on our funding to help them out. If the damage had been more, we may not have been able to stay open. This would be a loss to those in our area who rely on us to clothe their children, buy them books and toys, the grant recipients as mentioned before, as well as the volunteers and work placements that have benefited from working with us, and we can help back into employment. If you can, please donate, so that we can keep this loss of takings, to a minimum. We may not hit our target, but in these times, every little helps, especially when people need us more than ever.