Gift card donations helping kit out Moray kids ahead of new school year
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PEOPLE are being encouraged to donate leftover Moray Gift Card balances to a local charity helping families facing hardship and poverty.
As children prepare to return to school soon, charity Moray School Bank is welcoming donations of remaining Moray Gift Card balances, to be used to help local families struggling to buy school uniform and basic household essentials.
Moray Gift Cards with any remaining balance to be spent on them can be dropped into the blue Moray School Bank collections bins located around Moray, or handed in to the charity’s Land Street office in Rothes. The charity will then use the remaining balances to buy items for local families.
Families in need are referred to Moray School Bank, and the charity will then provide the child with all they need for starting school, including shoes, bag, uniform and pencil case.
Debi Weir, the Development Manager at Moray School Bank, said that in the cost of living crisis, demand for their services has rocketed, and that every penny donated helps.
She continued: “If people have a Moray Gift Card at home with even just £1 or £2 left on it, please consider donating it to us at Moray School Bank so we can help the families in our community who need it most.
"We already welcome clothing at our collection bins in the community, and now, people can drop off their Moray Gift Cards, too.”
The charity will also be switching to using the Moray Gift Card to distribute funding for food and fuel to the families they support, enabling them to offer families both choice and dignity.
Ms Weir said: “Our aim as a charity is to work with people and what they already do.
“We sometimes get funding for food and in the past we’ve used vouchers for a major supermarket, but the Moray Gift Card offers families more choice, so they can shop where they usually shop, whether that’s a low cost retailer or their corner shop.
"If you’re on a very tight budget, you know exactly what you have to spend to get what you need. And if you’re given a voucher for an unfamiliar store, it can throw everything off.
“Choice and dignity go hand in hand. As a person who is struggling, it is crippling to be told that you can only have this or only shop there. In the past, we’ve not been able to offer choice with our food support and we are thrilled that we now can thanks to the Moray Gift Card.
“Some children might only eat certain things, so a food hamper isn’t always the most helpful thing as it might contain lots of items that the children won’t eat. The Moray Gift Card is genuinely helpful because the family can pick what is right for them.
“We work on the same principle when it comes to helping families with uniform, letting the children pick their shoes or bag. It’s not up to us to say ‘that’s what you get’ because we’re all different and what’s right for one child isn’t right for another.
“Another reason that we’re choosing to use the Moray Gift Card to distribute any funding we receive is that we’re a community charity. Communities are not just people, they are also businesses, and it is really important that we support our community who in turn support us. This is more than a token gesture, it will offer genuine, useful and appreciated support for families in our need.”
Moray Council Development Project Officer Kirsty Shand added: “We’re thrilled to be working alongside Moray School Bank.
"For a child, having choice of what they wear or eat is fundamental to their happiness and wellbeing, and there is so much choice on the Moray Gift Card, from the big name retailers to local independents, places to buy shoes to places to buy households items, whatever you need, it’s here in Moray through the Moray Gift Card.”
The Scotland Loves Local Gift Card initiative was introduced in 2021 as a means to direct spend to local communities, and power economic recovery, delivered by Scotland’s Town Partnership (STP) and Perth-based fintech Miconex.
