A website selling second-hand clothes has been set up to support small Manx charities that can’t afford a shop on the high street.

Gemma Barker of Foxdale began the online platform where members of the public can sell their clothes in aid of a chosen charity or charities can sell goods to support their own cause.

The 30-year-old said: ’The idea came about because my parents set up a charity, Bridge the Gap Isle of Man, but small charities like theirs can’t afford to have a shop in the streets.

’Small charities also don’t have enough people in their committees to run a shop like the bigger ones.’

She added: ’The next step has to be for charities to also have an online presence.

’However for individual charities, especially smaller ones, this would result in expense and the additional work managing their own website and so it seemed an ideal solution to have one website encompassing all charities.’

The horse riding instructor signed up to the Isle of Man Government Micro Business Grant Scheme to help create the website called ’Bee Froogle’.

It is offered to charities at no cost whatsoever.

She now has five registered island charities on the website.

This includes Isle of Man Breast Care, Isle of Man Anti-Cancer Association and Isle of Man Pony Club.

’I started setting up the website about a year ago and had a soft launch in June 2019.

’I didn’t tell many people about it as I wanted to see how it went,’ she said.

’As I’m balancing this alongside my job, I stopped for a while, but I’ve now started pushing it.

’I want to get more charities on board.’

Charities must be registered ones, she said, and individuals can add their chosen charity if it’s not on the website.

Gemma said she checks that the bank details match those of the charity.

Once that is completed, individuals can upload photos of their clothes, select a price and choose to donate 50%, 75% or 100% of the value of each item towards their chosen charity.

’That way it gives yourself some motivation to sell your goods and raise money for charity,’ she said.

Bee Froogle is described as ’guilt-free shopping’ and promotes recycling and reusing rather than throwing clothes away.

’I’m quite green and hate fast fashion,’ Gemma said.

She believes ’we have become a throw away society’.

’I remember when we were little and our mum would bring in a big bag of second-hand clothes and we would dive into it to see what we could find. Today, kids have new clothes every week,’ she said.

She will hold open sessions for those who want to take part.

You can contact Gemma on [email protected] or search: www.beefroogle.com