ESPO Donate Essential Items For Starter Packs
In January 2025, the ESES Communities Team were contacted by Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO) whose head office is in Leicester. ESPO is a public sector owned professional buying organisation (PBO) who specialise in providing a wide range of goods and services to the public sector. They offer a comprehensive, one-stop shop solution and access to over 120 specialist frameworks and bespoke procurement services, along with their catalogue range of over 28,000 products. City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) had raised awareness of our portal as ESPO were looking to make a social value donation to align with the work they were carrying out for CEC.
ESPO had selected the request from Fresh Start for essential items required for their 'Starter Packs'. These packs include basic starter items needed to set up a home for people have experienced homelessness.
Fresh Start has been supporting people as they move on from homelessness into unfurnished tenancies across the city of Edinburgh for over 25 years. Fresh Start focus not only on homelessness prevention, but the period following temporary accommodation or rough sleeping where tenancy is gained in order to tackle the cycle of repeat homelessness.
They do this through;
- ‘Starter Packs’ with essential household items.
- 'Fresh Rooms' who paint and decorate properties to make them welcoming and homely.
- Cooking lessons, community meals and ingredient cooking bags from their Community Hub Kitchen.
Additionally, this location hosts their Food Pantry which offers a more dignified alternative to foodbank use.
Fresh Start's Starter Packs provide individuals and families, moving on from homelessness essential household items. Often these are dontations of pre-loved home items or new donations of toiletries etc.
ESPO offered to provide Fresh Start with a selection of their most needed items including cleaning items, to ensure they could maximise the impact of the start packs.
Please extend a huge thank you to ESPO on Fresh Start's behalf. We are very grateful for the donation and the items will go to great use in our Starter Packs going out to people moving on from homelessness and starting afresh in their new homes.
We were keen to help with this request because it seemed like a very worthy cause. As a public sector organisation, we weren't able to donate money and because we are based in England, we weren't able to donate our time either. As the organisational request was for items that we could provide, we supplied a range of cleaning products for Fresh Start’s housing ‘Starter Packs.’