15/10/2026
Big news… we’ve got the keys! 🔑
After more than 30 years supporting people into work from our base here at Morton Park in Darlington, we’re opening a brand-new Tandem charity shop right below our long standing premises this November – and we’d love our community to help us bring it to life!
Tandem (formerly Morrison Trust) has supported thousands of local residents with skills, training, confidence-building and employment through projects like Pathways, Tandem Into Work and Choices – helping people of all ages move into jobs, training, education and volunteering. Now we’re adding a shop that will do two vital things: generate unrestricted income to fund our work, and provide real work experience with qualifications attached for our project beneficiaries.
Here’s how you can get involved:
• Volunteer in the shop
We’re looking for friendly, reliable volunteers to help run the shop day to day and support the people on our programmes as they build skills on the shop floor – from customer service and merchandising to till work and stock management. Whether you can offer a regular half day or a full day a week, we’d love to hear from you.
• Donate goods of all shapes and sizes
We’ll be accepting good quality clothing, homeware, books, toys, collectibles, small furniture and more. Every donation helps us fund tailored one to one employability support, training and confidence building sessions for local people who are out of work.
• Become an official founder – buy a foundation brick
We’re inviting businesses, community groups and individuals to become “Founders” of the Tandem shop by pledging to buy a foundation brick. Your name (or organisation’s name) will be displayed proudly on our Founder Wall in the shop, and your support will help us cover the initial set up and running costs so we can focus on changing lives. https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/tandem-shop-founders-club
• Help us kit out the shop
If you can donate shop fittings or equipment – rails, mannequins, shelving, counters, display units, hangers, POS equipment, or anything that helps us create a welcoming, professional retail environment – you’ll be directly supporting people to train and gain work experience in a high quality setting.
Every pound we raise – and every hour of work experience delivered – feeds back into our mission to support unemployed people in Darlington to develop their skills, gain qualifications and find paid work.
If you’d like to volunteer, donate goods, buy a foundation brick or talk about donating shop equipment, comment, message us here or contact the Tandem team at [email protected] or 01325 387700.
Or just drop stuff off!
(logo is a work in progress…)
