It’s a charity shop, but there are no racks of old clothes and dog-eared paperbacks here. Instead there are games, collectibles, cuddly snakes – and Indonesian friendship bracelets.
The Living World shop at Paignton Zoo Environmental Park has just been refreshed, refurbished and rearranged to make it more open and more child-friendly. The shop, which opened in 1995, has a floor area of 205 square metres and carries over 2,700 product lines. It employs 7 permanent full-time and part-time staff and up to 20 in the busy summer season.
Around 500,000 Zoo visitors pass through every year; crucially, Living World donates a third of a million pounds in profit direct to charity each year. This is because Paignton Zoo is part of the Whitley Wildlife Conservation Trust, the charity which also runs Living Coasts and Newquay Zoo in Cornwall, and which funds conservation work in the UK and overseas.
Staff hope Fairer World products will be more accessible to visitors now that they have been brought out of their shop-within-a-shop and mixed among the toys and souvenirs. And those Indonesian friendship bracelets? “They are handmade in Bali by small, family-run workshops.”
The Living World gift shop is open 7 days a week to visitors and non-visitors and there’s free parking. Paignton Zoo Environmental Park is a registered charity. For more information go to www.paigntonzoo.org.uk or ring 01803 697500.
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