An upholstery company shared its trade secrets with a charity so it can raise more cash to keep itself afloat. Shackleton opened its doors to The Howland Centre, based in School Street, Dewsbury – a charity for disabled people which fundraises by taking on furniture-making projects from the public. By sharing information, it is hoped the centre can improve its upholstery services and make up for lack of funding affecting its services.
Howlands manager Deborah Hall said: “We were eager to learn about upholstering but had no access to the right skills until Shackletons offered to help us. Upholstering is an activity many of our service users enjoy, and we also make money taking in upholstery projects from members of the public who pay us for our services.”
Shackletons invited Deborah to attend a workshop at the Dewsbury factory, where assistant operations manager Tony Render showed her the skills needed to complete projects with a professional finish.
Tony said: “We had heard about their lack of funding and knew we could make a positive contribution. By sharing our knowledge and skills we hope they will now be able to put this to good use and start to earn enough money to keep their services going.”
Deborah added: ”There is so much more to it than we thought and we are extremely grateful to Tony and Shackletons for sharing their trade secrets to help us make a success of our services ”