Help make history

The Dr Hadwen Trust (DHT) is the UK's leading charity that funds medical research without using animals. Next month they are making history by opening their first retail charity shop – a vegan charity shop – a first for a national charity.

The charity has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the fitting of the shop. Supporters are being invited to pledge anything from £1 which will buy 10 coat hangers to £1,000 which rewards the pledger with a VIP invitation to the shop opening and a hug from Naomi the shop manager. The official opening ceremony, on 15 August, will be performed by Downton Abbey's Peter Egan, the charity's Patron.

Said the DHT's Group Head of Operations, Dr Kay Miller, "We are giving our supporters an opportunity to make history by supporting the opening of our first charity shop. Crowdfunding will help to off-set the costs of setting up the shop to allow more funds to go towards funding cruelty-free, human relevant research. Setting up a shop is expensive, but we believe that it will help raise awareness about what we do and much needed funds to support more cruelty-free and human-relevant research."

She continued, "We hope that this will be the first of a number of Dr Hadwen Trust charity shops, so the more support we get for our first shop the better, because that will help speed up our ability to open more shops."

"In addition to helping raise awareness and funds to support our work, we believe that our shop will have environmental benefits through recycling and reselling preloved goods. It will support budget shopping by offering good quality goods at low prices. It will have ethical benefits as no animal products will be used or sold in our shop. And, it will allow us to offer volunteering opportunities and work experience."

"Above all, through the additional funds raised we will be able to fund more research projects. We receive many more applications than we can currently fund so the opening of our shop will, we hope, contribute to more cutting edge and innovative research projects."

If you would like to help fund the shop or to volunteer to work in the Dr Hadwen Trust charity shop, call 01462 436819 or email info@drhadwentrust.org For more information about the DHT visit www.drhadwentrust.org

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