How an evening hobby turned into a lifeline for the Kippax community

The former teaching assistant turned shop-owner has run 'The Globe - Not for Profit' shop (named after her husband, son and daughter's initials) in Kippax for the last four years, helping those in need in the community.

She takes donations in the same way that a charity shop does but all the proceeds are then used for a community cause after discussions with customers and local residents. For example, cash has been spent on kitting out a house for a single father, buying a mobility scooter for a teenager and a trike so that a youngster with a rare bone condition could safely go for bike rides with his twin sister.

Prior to having the shop she used to loan out prom dresses for girls whose families couldn't afford to buy them brand new so the youngsters didn't miss out and the idea of getting things people needed but couldn't afford grew from there.

There are now around 7,000 members on a facebook page for the shop, which originally started as a hobby for Mrs Street, before it rapidly outgrew her garage. Globe is now in need of a storage container to store the extra items that are coming in.

She said: "I started it initially on an evening from home for an hour but it just took over my life. I used to work with a lot of hard to reach students and do home visits and it opened my eyes a lot to be honest, as to what you perceive people to have and what they actually do have and how many people are struggling. I thought there is a real need and it escalated from there.

"It became more than an hour a night and then my garage was full of things people had donated. I did it like this for a year and thought I will give this a whirl."

Over the last few years Mrs Street, 47, has helped out women in domestic abuse cases that have left and started again and helped save Christmas for a single mother of five whose house, and presents, had been ruined by a sewage leak.

Mrs Street said: "We were collecting items and getting them delivered at midnight on Christmas Eve. We try and keep it community orientated. People cam just come in for a coffee if they want. We are as surprised as anybody as to what we get donated and if we haven't got what people want, chances are we will get it.

"I absolutely love doing this. Some days I can be buying things at 3am but I absolutely love it."

Miranda Lyons is one of the people that has been helped by the shop which used profits to buy a scooter for her son for £850 when a new one would have costs several thousands. She now volunteers in the shop on a Saturday as a thankyou.

She said: "I came across the shop by accident. I lost my dad two years ago and everything he had left he wanted it to do some good in the village rather than give it away to a national charity where the money goes out of the village.

"After that I went in to Globe every so often and struck a friendship up with Louisa and she knew about my disabled son and the health issues he was suffering from. He has a rare form of MC4R (an irregularity in the genes that dictate bodyweight) so he is a very specialist case.

"Louisa knew we were struggling to get my son out of the house due to him being in constant pain so she offered to purchase a mobility scooter for him. Within 24 hours she had found and purchased one and we collected it that day. It has given my son his independence back and at 19 that’s a huge thing to lose.

"You could get a three piece suite from her for a tenner - for struggling families it has been fantastic."