A COUNTY homelessness charity has received help from volunteers from a city business branch.

The team from Virgin Money went to the Maggs Day Centre as part of the firm's corporate social responsibility initiative.

They spent a day at the centre’s clothing project, working alongside seasoned volunteers and the co-ordinator Steph Maton.

The team’s task was to sort out the latest donations and revise the shop layout to make it more user-friendly.

They further helped create room for seasonal stock.

Steph said: “Along with four of our regular volunteers, three of whom had taken a day’s annual leave to be with us, we welcomed a team from Virgin Money to help us have a reorganisation day at clothing.

“We are trying to continue to develop the service we provide for those we work with by making clothing a more organised and easy shopping experience and have spent months preparing for the final push on the reorganisation of stock and putting a process in place to manage the stock levels of the items we must always have available to our customers.

“The Virgin Money team were amazing, they were so friendly and just got stuck into our plan for the day.”

Since 2003 the Maggs’ clothing project has helped those in need — from rough sleepers looking for bedding and clothes to people who have recently found housing.

In 2023 the project assisted 1,477 individuals, offering items ranging from sleeping bags and pillows to kitchen appliances, toiletries and food.

Jessica Smith, field business development manager at Virgin Money, said: “We chose Maggs because of their countywide reputation and the dedicated support to those in need in our community.

“It was extremely humbling to hear the stories and the wide variety of reasons that people experience homelessness and the small things like donating your unused clothes can do to help those in need."

The charity operates two day centres in Worcester and Malvern and four housing facilities for homeless individuals through its accommodation project.

In addition to support workers in centres, Maggs has outreach and harm reduction teams and an intensive transition support team for those with complex needs.

For more information, visit www.maggsdaycentre.co.uk.