About Us

To provide good quality furniture and household goods at affordable prices to families and individuals within East Surrey.  By collecting no longer wanted items, we reduce the volume of domestic waste in landfills, while providing support and work experience for volunteers.

Our East Surrey focused charity fills a variety of needs within our community.  Through the donations of East Surrey residents, we collect unwanted / second hand furniture, appliances and other household items.  Once received in our warehouse, we ensure collected items are in good usable condition and appliances are in working order.  Customers come to the Warehouse and select from a wide choice of basic household goods, furniture and appliances - which are then delivered to them.  To minimize our carbon footprint, pickups and deliveries are scheduled with a minimum of travel and distance.

Furnistore sales are open to the public. Historically, our sales of recycled goods were once only of interest to those in need.  We continue to work closely with many family and social agencies and provide a variety of household items at a significant discount.  In emergency situations, we provide essential household goods at no cost. 

Since becoming a registered charity in 2000, our aim has been to meet the needs of our community – by recycling household goods. The majority of our staff is made up of volunteers. New volunteers are always welcome.  Since we have been operating, many of our volunteers find their time with us help them to go on to both part  and full time employment in the private sector or gives the confidence to continue with their academic studies at college and university levels. Some of our volunteers are retired professionals wanting to give something back to their community.

It is through our volunteers that we are able to make Furnistore successful. This past year, our charity was honoured with a community award from the Mayor of Redhill.  We look forward to expanding and continuing our work within the East Surrey community. 

Our Warehouse is open to all members of the public, weekdays 10.00 – 4.00.  Furnistore is dedicated to recycling good quality household goods.  As a registered charity, we have a variety of volunteers who collect donated furniture, furnishings and appliances from within the East Surrey area.   Once the goods are received in our warehouse, volunteers check, store and clean the collected items.  Upon approval, items are put on our Warehouse sales floor.  Typically, items range from used sofas to hardly used furniture such as cabinets, chests of drawers or anything else found within your own home.   We have recently moved to a new warehouse in Redhill, near to Merstham and is easily accessed by public transport. 

Like many charities, Furnistore was originally set up by the Social Action Sub-Committee of Churches Together in Redhill in 1994 in order to help address the needs of homeless people in the area. The project’s concept was driven by public concern that good unwanted furniture such as sofas or tables had become increasingly difficult to donate to charity and usually ended up in landfill sites. Agencies such as Women’s Refuge and the Salvation Army had ceased taking furniture due to the tightening of fire regulations on second hand items. A new organization was therefore needed to set up a collection, storage and distribution system.   

In 1994, the Social Action Sub-Committee of Churches Together had been asked to help resolve the need for such an organization, along with addressing the needs of homeless people in the area.  A Furniture Re-Use project and a Nightstop Emergency Accommodation project for homeless young people was born. At that time, Churches Together provided the funding, while St. Joseph’s Catholic Church provided the use of a garage for storage.  Volunteers began to help by answering phone calls from the public and housing organizations, while others took on collections and deliveries.

Collected 9,627 items of furniture, household goods and appliances from 2,573 households · Delivered 9,111 items of furniture, household goods and appliances to 2,309 homes.

Over the years, volunteers have come from a variety of sources. Some of those are retirees who “just want to help out”, others as part of the Princes Trust. While others, working closely with a variety of county based agencies. We have had volunteers come to us via the Employability scheme which assists people with learning disabilities to get the skills, confidence and job experience to go on to paid employment. Some volunteers are just trying to rebuild their lives from the situations that they found themselves in such as: domestic violence, first time offenders, marriage breakdown, brushes with the law, to immigrants trying to improve their language skills.  

With the exception of our retired volunteers, a number are seeking full time employment. Since taking on volunteers, some have gone onto higher education – in fact one volunteer will be leaving us soon to take up a post as a drugs councillor. One volunteer, who came to us, was so keen to work with us; we funded his training to qualify as a Portable Appliance Tester.  

Since inception, we have helped our volunteers gain confidence, sharpen old or learn new skills and in some cases training. Luckily for us, many of our past volunteers, who have moved on to employment continue to volunteer whenever they can to help our charity.

Words and phrases such as: “environmentalism”, “going green”, “eco-warrior”, and “sustainability” have become part of our everyday life. With the increased awareness of the environment, recycling is now “fashionable” - the existence and success of programmes such as Kristy Allsopps' Home Made Christmas and House specials, and the overwhelming response to Mary Portas' pop up charity shop in the uber luxurious Westfield Mall, London are two cases in point. Within the last few months, quite a number of boutiques have popped up in London offering sustainable clothing – new clothes made from up cycling old vintage items. The ever increasing awareness about recycling is something that everyone can participate in and Furnistore has been recycling since its inception.  

Although we sell donated goods to the public, the founders of Furnistore initially wanted to help those less fortunate. During this current economic downturn, there has been a noticeable increase in the amount of people coming to Furnistore. Customers recommended through community agencies are for the most part unable to afford the full price of items. After an assessment, we offer a discount of 50% - depending upon need (please refer to our downloadable form or on-line form). To those in greatest need, we can offer a grant towards much needed furniture / household goods. Most of the families requiring heavily discounted household goods are those who have previously been made homeless or were moved from temporary to permanent housing – sometimes at short notice.  

NOTE: Assessment times are; Mon-Thurs 10-3pm or Fri 10-2pm, not on Saturdays.

We work closely with agencies based within East Surrey. (Please see our website pages for those Agencies, Surrey Reuse Network (SRN) & Furniture Reuse Network (FRN) that we work closely with). Customers brought to us via our “partner” agencies include:-

• People moving out of temporary accommodation and into newly allocated largely unequipped premises – often with little warning. Many times, our response is required in terms of hours.
• Households that include people with physical disabilities, mental health needs or learning disabilities whose furniture is often worn out faster than usual. As substantial number of families we help have children with a range of special needs.
• People on low incomes whose appliances or furniture have worn out and who have insufficient funds to buy replacement or have changes within their family circumstances.  

By collecting unwanted household items and appliances, we are at the forefront of recycling. Surrey County Council recognizes recycling efforts and offers funding incentives called Landfill Tax Credits to organizations such as ourselves. Detailed records are kept, submitted to the council for review and reimbursement for the tonnage diverted from landfills, which help to meet our considerable running costs..

Like all charities during this economic recession, we are seeing an increased demand for our services. The increased popularity of recycling has sharpened the focus on what Furnistore is all about. A good portion of customers come to us via agencies – many of which do not admit their difficulties, and unless accompanied by support workers or friends, many are embarrassed or play down their difficulties – especially our older customers.

We recognize the need to increase donations. In 2009, we diverted 75 tonnes of household goods from landfills – we hope to increase that tonnage to 100 within this calendar year. Even with many individuals dropping by to make donations, we recognize the need to widen our presence throughout East Surrey. Furnistore's presence has been primarily within the communities of Redhill, Reigate and Horley.

Our overwhelming challenge is for Furnistore to become self funding. Like everyone else, running costs for the warehouse and our vehicles, has increased. Regrettably discounts on electricity, nor petrol for our vehicles are never granted to charities. With the government’s announcement of drastic cutbacks in funding for government agencies, we suspect some of the funding from Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and Tandridge District Council may be cut dramatically.

This year, we are focused on raising our public profile throughout East Surrey and efforts to create a network of volunteer fund raisers for our charity are underway.

Our big challenge is to increase our “green credentials” by making better use of the internet. Although the web site (www.furnistore.co.uk) exists, we realize that we can do much more. By upgrading our internet site, offering a complete listing of all furniture on a daily basis would be a boost. Site visitors could view the item(s) and price and it is envisage that the item could be reserved for 24 hours to enable viewing before purchase. Like supermarkets, this facility would reduce the amount of traffic to our warehouse, allow our clients within the confines of their own home to pick and choose the furnishings they purchase. With government initiatives to increase internet use throughout the country, we foresee this type of access benefiting those housebound residents within East Surrey.

With dwindling financial resources from government agencies, companies and individuals being pushed to limits, Furnistore recognizes that it needs to become financially self sufficient. In the past, Friends of Furnistore have helped through fund raising events, but this is not enough. Since recycling has become part of everyday life, we recognize that we need to attract the public's attention to what we offer. By operating along the lines of the retail charity shops, we need tap into those turning their back on new goods in favour of those which can be used as designed or reused in other ways. This will also allow us to collect a full and fair price for furnishings – which all go to help Furnistore.

In the future, the goal is for Furnistore to become East Surrey's premier “re-use centre”. As a centre, it should be a source for residents who want to learn more about how they can benefit from recycling and learn new skills in the process. One volunteer has already offered her services to teach others to sew – to make sturdy grocery shopping bags from donated fabrics such as curtains. Open to all East Surrey residents, classes on variety of skills including sewing or furniture restoration or re-use would be offered for a small fee or free of charge. “Students” would learn a new skill on donated items, which can then be added to our warehouse inventory. Thus, we increase the awareness of various forms of recycling, residents increase their skill sets, and East Surrey continues to reduce the amount of goods dumped in landfills because Furnistore will ultimately take in furnishings regardless of condition. This is a win/win scenario for all within East Surrey.

Furnistore is dedicated to increase the recycling of household items, to place those items in a new home. Through our efforts we also want to continue to provide volunteers new skills and a sense of purpose. We look forward to when we can increase our presence within the confines of East Surrey, widen our collection of unwanted items, and in turn reduce the amount of materials placed within landfill sites throughout the community of East Surrey.