Graham Denny
The BASIC Life Charity
What a journey I've had (and continue to have) with BASIC!
It all started with my sudden, unbidden and unexpected Christian conversion.
Christians are sometimes referred to as 'do gooders' and it's probably a fair comment. The thing is 'doing good' kind of simply goes with the territory of being a Christian.
Well, there came a point where the 'doing good' had to have some structure, so one day I simply woke up with the name BASIC. I had wanted to combine the business I was doing with the Christian aspect.
Business And Service In Christ was born.
I also woke up with the logo which represents a door opening from darkness to light.
'Waking up' with things sounds a bit strange I know - but that's just what happened.
We got registered with the Charity Commission on 24th January 2000 and then we decided to open a shop.
We had no idea what would happen as we had no experience of retail trade. It just seemed the 'right thing to do'.
'The right thing to do' has been a theme which has sat beside me for the last 25 years.
Our first shop became an instant success. We found people donated all kinds of items and other people bought them. We actually started to make money!
Money never was and never has been our motivation. Our motivation is to help people whatever their problem is, to enable people and to simply make life better.
Over the years we've moved to bigger and better shop premises, opened a second shop and also taken on a storage and sorting depot.
We've grown steadily over the years and we've implemented all kinds of initiatives.
Our food bank started in March 2013, we then started to supply free breakfasts for children in two local schools. We initiated and originally supplied significant funding to provide a youth worker for Felixstowe. This has now grown into the successful charity BOOST in it's own right.
We have been central in several emergency fund raising initiatives and we have lost count of the number of individuals, groups and organisations we have assisted over the years.
I'm proud of what has been achieved by BASIC over the past 16 years.
From a simple idea, powered by a conversion experience and a willingness to follow where led we have been able to transform the lives of so many people.
Webpage: Basic.org.uk
The BASIC Life Charity shop at 17 Hamilton Road, Felixstowe
The BASIC Life Charity shop at 312 High Street. Walton, Felixstowe