COVID forced the closure, for a while, of St Finnbarr’s Charities Shop, in Dornoch, but the shop’s dedicated team of volunteers have quickly resumed their remarkable fundraising work! This year, once again, St Finnbarr’s has made a generous donation to the work of SSAFA Sutherland. SSAFA (The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association) is a UK-wide organisation which helps serving and retired Armed Forces personnel and their families in time of need.

The small team of volunteers in the Charities Shop raise incredible amounts of money for charity each year, thanks to their skill in identifying the potential in donations from the community: they transform some people’s unwanted bits and pieces into other people’s desirable items – and offer astonishing value in doing so.

SSAFA’s Sutherland branch – another small team of committed volunteers – is dedicated to helping needy members of the Armed Forces community here in Sutherland. SSAFA caseworkers visit clients in their homes coast-to-coast, offering support in various ways, including direct financial support. Like all SSAFA branches, SSAFA Sutherland must raise its own funds. But time spent fundraising could be better spent in helping clients – so St Finnbarr’s generous donation has given SSAFA Sutherland a massive boost.

SSAFA Sutherland Chairman William Sutherland said,

‘SSAFA Sutherland volunteers are most grateful for this wonderful donation from St Finnbarr’s Charity Shop. Our volunteers travel many miles across Sutherland to help members of the ex-Services community, and this superb donation will do a huge amount to enable us help local clients in the year ahead. We thank St Finnbarr’s Charity Shop most sincerely for thinking of us and our valuable work, and we shall ensure that their donation will be used in direct support of needy SSAFA clients.’

Fr Simon (Priest at St Finnbarr’s) said,

“We are so pleased to be able to help secure the continuing work of SSAFA in Sutherland. Their excellent work supporting the mental and physical well-being of veterans and those who currently serve in our forces is so important, and along with our donation we pray they will continue to be a lifeline for those who have worked for justice, freedom, and peace. Our sincere thanks go to our donors, volunteers, and customers for making it possible for us to support SSAFA Sutherland and other local charities in this way.”

If you can help SSAFA Sutherland, either by volunteering or in some other way, OR if you need SSAFA Sutherland’s help, contact them by phoning 07585 030742 or emailing Alisdair.Miller@Sutherland.ssafa.org.uk

St Finnbarr’s Charities Shop warmly welcomes donations of unwanted items. However, restrictions mean they are not able to accept electrical goods, and large items such as furniture, bicycles, prams etc. Thank you for considering supporting local charities by donating items to St Finnbarr’s Charities Shop.

[Photo shows Father Simon Scott of St Finnbarr’s with SSAFA Sutherland Chairman William Sutherland. Also in shot are St Finnbarr’s Shop staff Caroline Barnes (L) and Monica Dargie.]