Ealing Broadway is hosting a free Uniform Shop over the Easter holidays to help families find those essential school clothing items ahead of the new term.

Uniforms and sports kits are a necessary, but sometimes costly expense for families, but to make everyone's life that little bit easier Ealing Broadway's Uniform Shop will be returning for a whole week.

Before opening, the shopping centre is once again inviting locals to donate good quality school items to a dedicated donation box located outside Flying Tiger, including branded and non-branded core school uniform, sportswear, footwear and school bags.

Ealing residents can visit the shopping centre and make uniform donations from today until 6 April (credit: Ealing Broadway).

The free pop up will run daily from Saturday, 6 April until Saturday, 13 April, from 10am - 4pm while stocks last, with visitors invited to browse and choose up to four items to help prepare their children for going back to school, with no donations necessary.

The initiative follows the centre's first pre-loved uniform shop event last summer, where nearly 3,000 local families donated 10,242 pre-loved school items.

Over ten days, 2.27 tonnes of clothing were prevented from going to landfill, and any damaged items added to the Love Not Landfill clothes bank for recycling.

Ealing Broadway's uniform shop event from July 2023 (credit: Ealing Broadway).

Timings are as follows:

• From now until Friday, 5 April: Drop off pre-loved school uniform and sportswear items at the donation box outside Flying Tiger. Ealing Broadway say all items must be good quality and freshly laundered.
• Saturday, 6 April until Saturday, 13 April (from 10.00am – 4.00pm): Visitors can choose up to four pre-loved items whilst stocks last.

Andrew Rollings, centre director at Ealing Broadway, said: "The response we had to the Uniform Shop last summer was incredible, with a record number of clothes donated and thousands of families getting involved.

"It's brilliant to see the local community coming together and helping those in need of some extra help.

"This is a great initiative to support families while living costs are still high, while simultaneously preventing surplus school clothing from going to landfill.

"We've already received a fantastic number of donations for this Easter's event, and we look forward to seeing as many families as possible at our pop-up."

Councillor Kamaljit Nagpal, Ealing Council's cabinet member for a fairer start, said: "School uniform can be costly if you have one school-age child, and for families who have more than one the costs just go up and up.

"The free school uniform shop was so popular last year, and I thank Ealing Broadway for continuing with organising and hosting this shop – I know that parents, carers, grandparents and others really appreciate the help this provides at this time."

We want to provide Ealing with more and more clickbait-free local news. To do that, we need a loyal newsletter following. Help us survive and sign up for our free weekly newsletter by clicking the link HERE.