Get involved with Sustainable September 2025

We’re excited to launch this year’s Sustainable September campaign, bringing together communities, creativity and compassion to help fund vital end of life services.

Initially launched to de-bunk the age-old myths around charity shopping, Sustainable September returns for 2025, flying the flag for retail sustainability and encouraging our communities to support and show some love for all things secondhand.

Why donation quality matters

This year, alongside celebrating the preloved gems that can be found in charity shops, we’re educating our communities about the importance of quality donations and the impact of waste. Many charity shops have reported seeing an increase in donations that are unsellable, with one Keynsham-based shop manager taking to TikTok to raise awareness of the issue. 94% of the goods we sell in our shops are generously donated by members of our community. However, for each bag donated, only around 29% of the items can be sold. It costs Dorothy House £70,000 in wastage costs each year to dispose of or recycle items that don’t meet our donation guidelines. For context, this could fund our Hospice at Home service for two weeks, delivering personalised care to patients at home in their final days.

Threads for Care – watch this space!

We’ve even more to look forward to in this year’s Sustainable September campaign. In our mission to identify ways to reduce our carbon footprint and wastage costs, we’ll be launching our new umbrella retail brand ‘Threads for Care,’ a collection of sustainable collaborations with local makers and up-cyclers designed to reduce waste and fund vital end of life care.

We’re delighted to be working with local hand screen printer and appliqué artist, Amy Laws. Amy is reworking t-shirts, hoodies and shirts from our rag waste bins into a beautiful, bespoke new range. You’ll be able to find Amy’s creations in our Find Ubiety Lifestyle shop on London Road, Bath, Argyle Street, Bath and in our Winsley Hospice Reception. Be sure to follow her on Instagram too where you can follow her creative process.

Alongside Amy, we’re also excited to be working with Sharon Goold from EcoBunting, who will also be creating bespoke shirts from our rag waste, as well as a fantastic range of bags, which will be available for sale in our Pop-Up in The Shires, Trowbridge. We’ll be sharing more on these collabs on over the coming weeks, so watch this space!

New Dorothy House shops now open!

Our charity shops play a key role in generating vital income for the Hospice, and currently this income outweighs the financial support we receive from the government to fund our services. In 2024, we raised £5.8m in Retail sales, a whole £2m greater than the funding we received from the government that same year. With the rise of secondhand clothing sites such as Vinted, Depop and eBay, being fashion conscious is more important than ever, in particular with young adults. Earlier this year, we added two new shops to our Retail portfolio, and there’s a third on the way with our new superstore set to open this autumn (watch this space!). In July we opened our new pop-up based in The Shires in Trowbridge, alongside our Clearance and Donation Centre in Corsham, located opposite our main Warehouse.

Our Clearance and Donation Centre is home to a fantastic selection of end of line and preloved clothing, toys, bric-a-brac, furniture, and lots more, all at unbeatable prices. At the same time, customers are able to drop off their donated goods, combining sustainability and convenience. Meanwhile, our Pop-Up shop in The Shires has been designed to target a younger demographic, emphasising the benefits of swapping fast fashion for preloved picks.

How you can get involved with Sustainable September

There are lots of different ways to get involved in this year’s Sustainable September, the easiest being to pay a regular visit to your local Dorothy House shop. Whether you’re dropping off donations or doing a spot of bargain hunting, you’ll be supporting a local charity and helping to generate vital income that helps us deliver our care to people in our community.

Fill a bag for a tenner!

You can kick off your sustainable shopping with a visit to our next Warehouse sale on Saturday 6 September, where you can fill a bag of preloved clothing for just £10, as well as shop a range of other preloved goodies.

Strength in Style – Wednesday 24 September

Where fashion meets compassion! Strength in Style Fashion Show is back for 2025. This powerful, beautiful, and inclusive event – this year hosted at the Bath Abbey – brings together fashion, community, and compassion, celebrating strength in every story while raising vital funds and awareness for local hospice and support services. 

24 September: 6:30 pm – 10:00 pm – Tickets are live and available for purchase here. 

Share your charity shop finds with us

If you find a gem in one of our charity shops, or you simply want to share your latest haul with us, we want to hear from you! Be sure to tag us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok and use #SustainableSeptember! Don’t forget, we’ve also recently re-vamped our Dorothy House Shop page which is your new one-stop-shop for all things Retail, so if you can’t resist a charity shop bargain, be sure to give @dorothyhouse.shop a follow on Facebook and Instagram!

Donate your preloved quality items

Your donations play a vital role in supporting the Hospice in providing personalised end of life care for people across our community. We have 29 high street shops which will accept donations that adhere to our donation guidelines listed on this page. To check what we can take click here. For the location and contact details of our shops, please click here.