September 2026 News
Well Being Bags
Warm thanks were received from George, paediatric doctor and the organiser of the annual Paediatric Junior Doctors Induction Day in London, held at King’s College London. All the participants much appreciated the gift of our well-being bags. We also received a request for a consignment of child-friendly scrub hats which we will begin working on shortly.
Uniform
In the previous newsletter, you will have read about the delivery of a huge mixed consignment of scrambled and unsorted school uniforms to The Scrubbery by Donate to Educate. These are intended for distribution to families identified as in financial insecurity in the boroughs of Southwark, Merton and Wandsworth. When the enormous job of sorting the clothes was completed by a team of volunteers, the items were divided evenly amongst the boroughs. Southwark collected their allocation, and the Dons Local Action Group delivered to Merton.
Families living in Wandsworth came to The Scrubbery in person. Each family was allocated a ‘personal shopper’ to walk them through the building on a one- way system to select what they needed from the stock. Volunteers from The Scrubbery and Dons Local Action were in each room to assist with the selection and sizing of garments. Different rooms contained trousers, woven shirts, polo shirts, summer dresses, jumpers and cardigans, skirts, skorts and pinafores, blazers and PE kit. Over three days, 450 families visited The Scrubbery to collect uniform. A huge thank you is due to Rosie and the team of volunteers for taking on this challenging task at such short notice and in such volumes. Approximately 20,000 items of uniform were delivered.
We have had some very good feedback especially from the families who received it.
Dear Rosie,
I am forwarding thanks. I met someone who was able to collect some items of uniform from you. She was so happy with the clothes and also the kindness from the volunteers.
Many thanks
Jen
The feedback from the council was entirely positive and they expressed their sincere gratitude to all of the volunteers without whom this venture would not have been possible.
The remaining PE kit, tracksuit bottoms, shorts and leggings have been given to Rackets Cubed in Roehampton where they will be allocated to pupils with similar circumstances.
As part of the uniform project a BBC Radio London team visited to interview all the partners and included a brief chat with Rosie about the Scrubbery. They hope to return another time to focus fully on the Scrubbery and in particular our work with Ukraine, which they noted is less prominently in the news, but that our help and support is needed just as much now as before.
Tote Bags
We had a donation of coffee sacks which were not suitable for use in the camouflage nets for which they had been intended. However, Gillian, one of our fabulous volunteers, had the great idea to make them into tote bags which she did single-handed. Charl, of The Curtain Tailor, had seen these tote bags in the Newsletter. He and his team had a couple of days available whilst waiting for a fabric delivery. They offered to make tote bags from off-cuts of wonderful curtain fabrics; many thanks to them all. We have delivered the bags for use at the Rackets Cubed social supermarket initiative - Roehampton Community Box, and received this letter of thanks.
Thank you so much for dropping everything off today.
The tote bags are absolutely amazing. The amount of work and thought that has clearly gone into them is incredible. They look like very expensive, high-quality tote bags, and they're so sturdy and well made. I have attached a photo of a couple of our volunteers holding them. Everyone who saw them was really impressed.
I also think it's fantastic that something which once held coffee has been transformed into something so useful and long-lasting. It's such a great example of sustainability in action, and I'm sure our customers will love them.
I haven't had a chance to go through all of the sports kit yet, but that's next on my list. Thank you so much for donating it. We will make sure it goes to children and families who need it most and that it gets put to good use in our communities.
Thank you as well for the extra sports equipment, including the tennis rackets, touch rugby tags and sports vests. All of it will be incredibly helpful and very much appreciated by the children and families we support.
Thank you again for your generosity and support. It really does make a difference, and we're very grateful.
Shipment to Ukraine
At very short notice, Medical Lifelines Ukraine, took a consignment of new clothing that had been entangled in the supermarket cages containing the school uniforms. Donate to Educate was pleased for these to be sent to Ukraine to the stabilisation points who need adult T-shirts and jogging bottoms. We additionally sent medical supplies, orthopaedic equipment, urology equipment, painkillers and a wheelchair. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this and especially Peter and Cheryl who work tirelessly rallying people to donate Ibuprofen and Paracetamol which we always need.
In Memory
We were very sorry to hear that John Hazel, one of our volunteers, has recently died. John came to help us during our time at the Bank of England premises, and our thoughts are very much with his wife Lesley, who also volunteers with The Scrubbery, and their family and friends.
The building
Rosie is in the final stages of negotiating a new tenancy agreement with Wandsworth Council for The Scrubbery to remain in our current premises. This agreement will allow the Scrubbery to remain in the building whilst the Council decides on how best to use the building going forward now that Oasis Academy Putney is officially closed. Progress on the document was delayed by the uniform project which took up an enormous amount of time and space.
Partner charities
In previous editions of the newsletter, I have given some information about our partner charities who provide aid to Ukraine and those who transport it: especially Medical Lifelines Ukraine, Pick Ups 4 Peace, the Forest Green community group, Dimitri and Lynda from the Embrace Me Foundation.
We also work in partnership with wonderful charities in our local area who should be mentioned. Some of our volunteers also work with them.
Rackets Cubed
‘Our school programme supports underserved children by providing enriching extracurricular opportunities, including STEM education, racket sport coaching, and a nutritious meal.’
The Roehampton Community Box founded by Rackets Cubed
‘We launched the Roehampton Community Hub in March 2020 in response to Covid, with the idea of helping local families in primary schools in Roehampton where we were already delivering our core programme. Rackets Cubed was aware that some families were already suffering with food insecurity. We reached out to the local families to gauge interest and immediately had 60 families asking for help within a week. We now support over 200 families within the Roehampton area.’
https://racketscubed.com/community-box/
Dons Local Action Group
We are a local network of volunteers initially formed in response to the COVID-19 crisis and now permanent across Merton, Wandsworth and Kingston.
We aim to help those in our local community to fight poverty and offer support. We provide food parcels, household goods, furniture and appliances. We also offer laptops through our Keep Kids Connected initiative for children who do not have access to online learning.
