The Museum of East Dorset has called upon locals to donate their unwanted Christmas presents to be repurposed as prizes for fundraisers throughout the year.
Located in Wimborne, the museum organises multiple fundraising events per year with all their proceeds going towards sustaining and running the award-winning museum.
The museum also uses the fundraising to support their Reminiscence Outreach programme which is designed to help stimulate those living with dementia.
For this initiative, museum volunteers visit care homes and day centres with memorabilia and objects to spark memories and take them back to happy environments from the past.
“For us as a community project, as a charity, we are always looking for ways of raising money and funds,” Andy Putt, the museum manager said.
“So people giving it to us is a really good way for them to feel part of the community but also supporting us as a project.
“If they can’t give to us financially they can give it as a gift. And then, when we run our raffles and events we can use them as prizes so therefore it’s not costing us, therefore the person giving is winning and we’re receiving the money and raising money for the charity.”
Director Francesca Hollow said: “We always need good-quality raffle and tombola prizes for our events. If anyone has an overload of new and unwanted toiletries, biscuits, sweet tins, wine -please consider us. Unwanted, unopened and duplicate gifts – we’d love to put them to fundraising use.”
Despite success for their own fundraising, the Museum also support Wimborne Food Bank and donates the unwanted gifts they get to give to people in need.
“The food bank doesn’t just give food, it’s people’s birthday presents, Christmas presents, seasonal gifts,” Putt said.
The Museum started the gift donation initiative in 2024 in hopes to relocate gifts that otherwise would go to waste.
Putt said: “We tried it last year [2024] and it was a really good success where people have gifts they’ve been given and don’t want to just put it in the cupboard and it disappearing but actually wanting it to have some benefit.”
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