Donating sporks and pens to Our Lady and St Chad Catholic Academy

You’ve had a rebrand, now what?

You’ve got a bunch of merch you haven’t used, and it’s taking up much-needed space. You don’t want to chuck it, but you can’t exactly use it anymore. What do you do? 

We were in a very similar predicament, where, after our rebrand, we had a lot of sporks and bright orange pens that we just didn’t know what to do with. 

That is, until our lovely email marketing expert, Hannah Matthews, suggested we donate them to her old school. 

That’s how we came to donate approximately x2,000 sporks and x4,000 pens to Our Lady and St Chad Catholic Academy in Wolverhampton. 

Did you know that 9 billion pens are thrown away globally each year? By donating old merchandise to organisations and charities that need it, you’ll stop it from ending up in landfill and help those who need it most. What’s not to love? 

In this blog post, we’ll: 

• Speak with Mrs Coombs from Our Lady and St Chad Catholic Academy.
• Find out more about how our donation will help the students. 
• Share more information on A Good Thing, a charity dedicated to donating old merch. 

We’re all about making a big, beautiful, positive impact whenever we can. If you’re also interested in making your brand monumental, chat with one of our dedicated merchandise consultants today.

Donating sporks and pens to Our Lady and St Chad Catholic Academy

Hi, Mrs Coombs. It’s lovely to meet you. Firstly, can you tell us a little bit more about Our Lady and St Chad Catholic Academy? 

“Of course! We’re a Catholic Academy based in Wolverhampton.

"Our school mission is underpinned by the values of ‘Respect, Truth, Justice, Peace, Charity and Forgiveness’. We aim to support families in nurturing children into becoming young adults of integrity and academic excellence.

"Also, 56% of our students are eligible for FSM (Free School Meals), and 23% of our students have SEN (Special Educational Needs)." 

Can you tell us how this donation came about? 

“Yes! It was a lovely surprise - one of our past pupils, Hannah Matthews, reached out to us to see if we’d be interested in the pens and sporks. And, of course, we were!”

Ah, yes - Hannah’s great! Will the sporks and pens be a big help, then? 

“Oh, definitely. We’ll use the sporks for our most vulnerable students who come to our breakfast club, and the pens will be given to our students who don’t have equipment provided for them from home.”

Oh, a breakfast club! Can you tell me more about that? 

“Sure. Our breakfast club provides food for all our students in all year groups. We provide either cereal, fruit, biscuit bars or bagels for them to enjoy so they’re ready for a day of learning.”

That’s so lovely. Is there anything else you do to help the children? 

“We do quite a bit, yeah! We also have a Barber Academy, where the children can get their hair cut if needed, and there’s also a student-run school shop. The children also enjoy the boxing mentors and the early help mentors who come in from time to time. Plus, we have a food bank initiative.”

That’s loads! What’s your food bank initiative? 

“Our food bank initiative has been operational for a number of years now (since Covid) and has continued to be extremely popular. We rely on donations from local supermarkets, the community and staff to help us out - and it’s been a great help.” 

Amazing. Lastly, what do you hope the children will learn from this donation? 

“I really hope that they’ll learn that everyone in society is willing to help and care for each other.”

Thanks so much, Mrs Coombs. Finally, a question for you, Hannah: how does it feel to be helping your old school? 

“It feels really good to be able to help! My mum actually works at the school, so I still hear a lot about everything that’s going on. It was actually from speaking to my mum about the food bank that gave us the idea for donating the sporks (and then, the pens too).

"It’s really nice to be able to help, but I can’t deny it’s also nice to be able to get rid of those sporks!” 

 What to do with your old merch?

Donate it via A Good Thing

We recently shared about another merch donation we did through partnering with A Good Thing, a charity that creates personal connections between businesses and charities. 

By donating your old merch to charities through organisations like A Good Thing, you’ll help reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfills, all whilst freeing up space in your office - yay! 

A Good Thing has created a step-by-step guide to the sign-up process and how to create your first listing. It’s super easy to follow along, and if you have any questions, the team at A Good Thing are there to help. 

Turn it into something new 

We also recently teamed up with Gomi to see what they could create with our old orange pens - and oh boy, we weren’t disappointed! 

From ideation and sketching to manufacturing, Gomi are reimagining what our plastic waste looks like. By making each product by hand, they’re sharing unique, memorable, beautiful tech that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before. 

This is what Gomi do best: create beautiful handcrafted power banks almost entirely from post-consumer waste. Check out the video below to watch our merch transform from pens into powerbanks! 

We love doing good things 

At Fluid Brand Revolution, it’s about more than just merchandise to us. We’re here to help you dream big, whether that’s through meaningful merchandise or helping our communities.

A big thanks to Mrs Coombs and Hannah for collaborating with us on this donation!

Interested in making your brand monumental? Chat with one of our dedicated merchandise consultants today.