After having moved from their Midsomer Norton outlet, P.E.O.P.L.E charity have been urgently seeking locations to open pop-up shops over the next few months.

While the charity have not yet been able to find a shop to permanently move in to, they have managed to secure venues kindly agreed and welcomed by three local Churches, as well as the opportunity to do the same at St. Nicholas Church Centre in Radstock.

Ty Emery, P.E.O.P.L.E chariy’s Housing Manager told The Journal: “It’s been a bit of a shock to the system having to basically start from scratch again, but we are getting there slowly.

“It has been very difficult trying to find a premises, both in Radstock and Midsomer Norton, but we are working hard to try and secure somewhere for the future and hopefully we will find somewhere soon.

“Without our shops, we have been able to focus back on our core work which has been great, but we are really looking forward to re-engaging with the public again as a whole.”

With this in mind, the charity will be holding a pop-up shop at the Methodist Church in Westfield on Thursday, 21st October between 10 am and 1 pm, where tea and coffee will be available.

The charity are inviting all members of the public to come along to support the community, even if they do not intend on purchasing anything, they will still be offered the opportunity to meet with others in a warm and safe environment.

There will be more opportunities to visit the pop-up shops throughout October and hopefully into the winter months. The Methodist Church in Radstock will be one of those locations, as they offer their space out to the charity. Tea and coffee will again be served in the Church on Monday, 25th October from 10 am - 1 pm.

The third location is St. Peter’s Church in Westfield, where again, P.E.O.P.L.E will be running a pop-up charity shop and serving tea and coffee. This will begin on Tuesday, 26th October between 10 am and 1 pm.

The St. Nicholas Church Centre pop-up shop will start on Thursday, 28th October and will run between 11 am and 2 pm.

Ty continued: “Our pop-up shops will be a mixture of things, we still have most of our Midsomer Norton stock in storage, but we will be selling things like clothes, DVDs, electrical items and we can always bring what we don’t have on the day back to the venue for next time.

“We will be selling everything that we used to have on display, apart from furniture as storing these items isn’t possible at the moment. We ended up donating most of our furniture back to the Sofa Project when we closed in Midsomer Norton.

“We would really like to encourage a sense of community again and we really hope people will like to come along.”

The charity will be running all of these events on a weekly basis for the rest of the year and hopefully through to 2022.

Ty added: “We hope the pop-up events will offer the local community a chance to re-engage with the services we offer as well as meeting with friends and neighbours, and also for those who are now getting used to life outside of recent lockdown restrictions and the effects that COVID-19 has brought upon us.”