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\nChocolate giveaway goes down well at new community store<\/p>\n
A shop to help people with the cost of living crisis has opened in Ilkeston. [ad_1] Chocolate giveaway goes down well at new community store A shop to help people with the cost of living crisis has opened in Ilkeston. Chris Jones, project manager at the Living Hope Community Store on Bath Street revealed that the shop would be offering products at affordable prices to people in need. At the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ilkestonlife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nChris Jones, project manager at the Living Hope Community Store on Bath Street revealed that the shop would be offering products at affordable prices to people in need.
\nAt the opening at the weekend, there was a big chocolate hand out.
\nChris said that they had first opened their shop in a basement of a Methodist church in Ilkeston about six months ago. But with over 2,000 people now signed up at their database they needed bigger premises. A former retail shop near Heron became free so they moved there.
\n\u201cWe want to help people access products they need in the cost of living crisis,\u201d said Chris. \u201cSome products will be free, some will be for 30 per cent off the original price, some for 70 per cent. We don\u2019t want to replace commercial shops, but we want to offer people products that they could not afford otherwise.
\n\u201cWe are open for everyone who needs us, students, pensioners, employed or unemployed. Working poverty is currently on the rise in the UK and there is a lot of stigma around it. We don\u2019t judge anyone.\u201d
\nThe opening ceremony attracted over 350 people to the shop on the first day after the ribbon was cut by Sian Hooton, Miss Diamond UK.
\nChris said: \u201cThe shop was absolutely full, the high street was buzzing.\u201d
\nAs well as giving the chocolate bars away themselves, they gave some to neighbouring businesses to pass on to their customers.
\nOther shops were said to be supportive and the event was described by Chris as \u201ca brilliant example of community cohesion\u201d.
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