Making sense of the world as a person who is deafblind or has complex needs can be a challenge. But support is available in the local community, through Sense.

I’m talking to Kathy and Jason, who are the managers of the Sense charity shop in Hayes. They spend six days a week ‘selling, selling, selling!’, which also means sorting any donated stock that comes in and pricing it too, to keep ‘the shop fully stocked to keep the customers happy’. ‘It’s always full on, as you know’ Kathy says with a smile.

‘I started here as a volunteer, and so did you,’ Kathy says, turning to Jason. ‘I got tapped on the shoulder one day while I was busy shopping in the shop, and was asked to come and help out,’ Jason explains. ‘Because of all my knowledge of records and things, and ever since I’ve been here’. That was about four and a half years ago.  ‘And then I was just walking past…I thought I’d pop in and see if they wanted a volunteer,’ Kathy smiles. ‘I volunteered for six months and then I became manager.’ It’ll have been ‘thirteen years in November’!

Sense was ‘first set up in 1954, by two mums whose children caught Rubella…the children were born deafblind and that’s how it first started’. ‘The first shop opened in 1986, which was Petts Wood!’. ‘It was the first shop that ever opened’ says Kathy. Sense is a big company now, with ‘well over 140 shops over the country’. We’re opening a lot more up north, but the newest shop will be opening in Gravesend.

What does the charity mean to you? Kathy and Jason pause, looking reflectively at each other. ‘It’s helping out the poor youngsters, especially the youngsters who can’t see or hear, making them happy and putting a smile on their face,’ Jason offers. Especially in a new era of medicine, when babies born prematurely are surviving, ‘a lot of babies are born with difficulties, so consequently you’re going to get that all the time…consequently they’re going to have some sort of disability whether it’s deafness or blindness’. Kathy speaks with some intensity here, declaring that ‘It’s just something that you feel passionate about’. Because ‘it’s a child at the end of the day; you’re making them happy’.

Sense is a charity that helps young people, adults and children communicate and experience the world, mainly through local centres, which offer day services to develop communication and living skills. Here, each family and everyone is cared for and supported with a personal connection. Sense is a lifeline that empowers people and develops confidence.

Working in and with the local community impacts the way that you view the relationships that the community exists upon. ‘We’re all friendly, we help each other out—if someone or the shop across the road needs something and we’ve got it, he can have it,’ Jason explains. Saying ‘it’s a good community spirit here’ is frankly an understatement: as a volunteer myself, I know the customers that regularly visit and chat on Saturday mornings and the ones that’ll promise to be back on Monday. We know the generosity of people, prior friends of the shop or otherwise. In the course of this interview, a gentleman donated his printer (along with its ink cartridges) and a woman offered the staff the leftover cupcakes from her Bakesale. There’s no end to the depth of kindness that we as a community can offer, in all the ways that we can. We never turn anything away, especially since (if you’re a UK taxpayer) Gift Aid can be claimed on your bags of donations, essentially sending 25% more money to the charity on these items when they are sold!

The shop in Hayes is special because it’s one of the few surviving examples of a good old fashioned rummage shop. ‘If someone wants to buy a button, they can buy a button!’ Kathy says confidently. Frankly, the prices are cheap—this isn’t the curated, boutique-y kind of charity shop; after all, ‘people like a rummage!’. There is a sense (no pun intended) that you’re searching for hidden treasure in a shop like this, and there’s a rush when you find what you’re looking for. ‘Because we get so much in, they [the customers] know that if they come in one day and they can’t get what they want, if they come in a couple of days later it’ll be here’ Kathy nods. ‘We keep the prices cheap, and that’s why we’re still a rummage-y shop’. We always ‘have a laugh and a joke’ with the regulars, we find the friendly atmosphere is invigorating-- and I have a feeling that it’s what entices the customers to come back (that, or the fact that books cost 50p!).

Our community is distinctly a collaborative one. When the door key was broken in the door of the shop, and Jason ‘needed the tools across the road, he gave me the tools and I was able to get into the shop without calling out a locksmith,’ Jason smiles. ‘The butcher’s wife, next door, she’s really good with a sewing machine,’ Kathy jumps in. ‘So whenever we get a sewing machine, she always tests it for us,’ Kathy beams.

We’re all looking for that sense of belonging in life, and good deeds give us an opportunity to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We want to be celebrated, supported, to be connected to one another: however we do that, be it donating a printer, lending your tools to a neighbour, or buying all six seasons of your guilty pleasure Glee on DVD for a fiver in a charity shop where the money goes to a good cause, we’re accomplishing something. We’re making change by being regular customers, regular volunteers, regular donators. Here, in the heart of the local community, is a beacon of goodness that shines with the love and care instilled in it by the managers, volunteers, and of course the local community that shop, donate and spend time here, building connection from the ground up. I can think of no better example of what hard work and passion can do, within our community and further outwards. This isn’t a sticking plaster over the difficulties that people who are deafblind experience; Sense provides practical solutions that enable everyone to flourish and develop themselves to reach their full potential.  

Is there anything that you’d like to say to the people who have had an interaction with the charity? ‘We’re always grateful for donations!’ Kathy and Jason say in unison. ‘And we’re so grateful for our volunteers, because we couldn’t run the shop without our volunteers, because it enables us to get on with what we need to do out the back here, as the donations keep coming in,’ Kathy elaborates. ‘We never turn anything away, anything—apart from, obviously, if they came in with a washing machine…’

By Lucy Tyrrell