30/01/2015 - Permalink

Come celebrate with the shop on the corner that is ‘sew’ much more!

Related topics: Community

After five years of trading, Corner Patch – the shop with a bright profile on the high street of Oswestry – proves how the lives of the people who work there can be transformed.

Corner Patch Shop is supported by Shropshire Council to help adults with learning disabilities get the skills and confidence to work in their local community through experience in dealing with the public in a retail setting.  It sells all manner of handcrafted gifts and items for the home, and is run by service users and staff from Patchworks, one of the council’s day opportunity services.

The shop moved from a workshop on an Oswestry industrial estate to the corner of Bailey Head and Albion Hill in Oswestry on 12 February 2010.

Freda Parry, Shropshire Council’s locality organiser, said:

“This was a huge change for us, but it’s made such a difference, we have not looked back.

“Five years ago we were a group of people being supported to make a range of textile products; it was good but we felt isolated, nobody knew about us.

“Now we are really the shop on the corner that is so much more – a great place to buy fabric goods and gifts.  But also a place of work that is helping us to be more independent, working at our own pace, in a community that has welcomed us.  Our neighbouring businesses have been very supportive.

“To mark our fifth birthday we are having a party on Monday 9 February 2015 and we want to invite you to celebrate with us.

“Corner Patch have big ideas for the future, we want to provide opportunities for more people to learn new craft and retail skills, but also the chance to grow in confidence and develop their independence.

“Please come and join in from 10.30am to 12.30pm to talk and find out much more.”

Feel the LOVE, it’s nearly Valentine’s Day – if you are stuck for ideas, Corner Patch has some lovely handmade gifts.

The shop is open Mondasy to Thursdays from 9am to 3pm.