Davina Hamilton is Community Business Logistics Manager at More Life Home CIC, a vital not-for-profit organisation that ensures that all families have the basic furniture and household goods they need, providing comfort and safety for those in need in Tower Hamlets.

What does your charity do?
More Life Home is an environmentally conscious non-for profit organisation with a mission to ensure every child has a bed to sleep in and every family a sofa to gather on. More Life Home provides free and low-cost furniture and household goods for those in Tower Hamlets that are low-income families, care leavers and ex-homeless, that are living in poverty or dealing with crisis. Tower Hamlets is one of the poorest boroughs in London.

By redistributing furniture items – that would otherwise be sent to landfill – into the homes of those experiencing financial difficulties, we are working to help save the environment and create warmth in homes of those unable to do so for themselves.

What are the challenges your service users face, and how does your organisation help users overcome them?
Working with our community partner ELBA, who refers corporate volunteers to our upcycling workshops, has been invaluable. Seeing all levels of staff getting stuck in, literally on their hands and knees, upcycling furniture is so heartwarming. The vulnerable people in Tower Hamlet face furniture poverty and cannot afford the basic furniture items, so we provide them with free furniture and help their house become a home.

Do you have an inspirational story/moment about your work that you would like to share?
We recently supported someone with free furniture items, who had been living on the streets for over 20 years and was just given their first property. Their smile lit up a room. This simple act can literally turn someone’s life around.

What kind of support are you in need of right now and how might volunteering fit into that?
We are always open to receiving donations, monitory or otherwise. We have an Amazon wish list link.  It would be great if a large Homebase retail store could support us as we are always in need of materials that will aid upcycling furniture, including chalk paint, sandpaper, etc. Corporate volunteering helps us immensely with the mammoth task of upcycling furniture, so thank you and we look forward to more of this.