How you can help
1: Sending Pens (and
pencils, erasers, rulers.....etc)
We welcome
donations of unwanted pens, pencils, erasers, rulers - anything that
might be useful in a school or orphanage. Please remember that it costs us money to send these items overseas, so if you are able to include a donation with your pens, it helps us to ship them as soon as we receive them - they are no use sitting in storage in the UK when they could be being put to good use overseas.
Overseas Ambassadors:
Send them directly to one of our ambassadors or other contacts in countries overseas, which will help us to use our limited funds to send more pens ourselves.
You can find details of Ambassadors overseas by clicking here List of Pens for Kids Ambassadors or simply email sendingpens@pensforkids.co.uk and ask for a suggestion.
Don't restrict yourself to just pens; pencils, erasers, rulers etc are all welcome. No wax crayons though please, they don't survive the hot sun for long.
If you are able, please test your pens before sending them, it avoids paying postage on something that isn't working!
2: Buying our postcards (UK
only)
We have started selling
postcards to support fund-raising. All profits made from the sale of
postcards go fully towards shipping pens. All of the photos used in our postcards were taken by Claus Kusk Hjørnet, the Danish founder of Pens For Kids. We currenty have 4 different designs: Zebra, Grant's Gazelle,
Yellow-Billed Hornbill and Speke's Weaver. The postcards are great quality photos, the web images have been reduced in quality to speed up loading times.
Postcards sell in packs of 10 for £2.50, including P&P to the UK. After printing, selling and postage costs, this generates a profit of just over £1 towards shipping pens. Of course if you would like to pay a little extra, it all goes to a good cause - there's a "Donate" button below.
There are a few different ways to buy postcards:
1: Send a cheque to the UK address above, indicating which postcards you would like. (Don't forget to include a return address!)
2: A bank transfer to our account - account details below, and then an email to purchases@pensforkids.co.uk telling me what you'd like, along with your address.
3: Buy online on this site, and pay using Paypal.
Here's what we have on offer...
Pack of 10 Zebra postcards
Pack of 10 Grant's Gazelle postcards
Pack of 10 Yellow-Billed Hornbill Postcards
Pack of 10 Speke's Weaver postcards
Pack of 10 assorted postcards
We're happy to accept your cash by any method - but options 1 & 2 above cost us less to adminster.
3: Funding
Pens For Kids UK has lots of donated pens just waiting for enough funds for us to send them - and more arrive most days.If you can help in any way with this cost, it means that we can send more pens.
We will happily accept any funding towards the cost of shipping. NONE of it is used to pay employees, it ALL goes towards postage costs.
Every little helps. If you'd like to sponsor an entire shipment, I can let you know the exact cost of a single box, or pallet, or container.
Alternatively, if you just want to make a donation to help with the cost of the next shipment, or to pay towards the cost of pens you've donated, that will be great too.
There are 3 ways of donating:
1: A cheque payable to "Pens For Kids" sent to the UK address above, either on its own or with some donated pens
2: A bank transfer directly to our bank account:
Name "Pens For Kids" Sort Code
08-92-99 Account Number 65521359
3: A Paypal donation:You don't have to be in the UK to use any of these options, you can donate from anywhere.
In Denmark, please see www.pensforkids.dk for details of how to donate.
In the US, please see www.pensforkids.com for details of how to donate.
Pens for Kids is trying to help underprivileged kids by removing one of the hurdles on their way to an education - the cost of a pen!
4: Get Involved - UK
We have an ongoing need
for help. Areas where a helping hand would be really useful are in:- promoting the work of Pens For Kids UK and encouraging donations of pens
- fund raising,
especially approaching companies to see if they will sponsor the
shipment of a box of pens
- testing
and repackaging pens for shipping (needs to be local to Kettering, as
this is where the pens are sent) We receive so many pens that we can't
test them all - but we hate paying to send pens that aren't working. If
you're able to test them for us before sending them, it really helps
and avoids you (and us) wasting money posting pens that don't work
Please note that nobody receives any salary or payment from Pens For Kids UK. All donations are only used to send pens. We can keep you supplied with tea or coffee whilst you're helping though.
We also have an ongoing need for new strong cardboard boxes, around 70 cm square is a good size/weight for shipping pens. Please contact us if you have any spare.
A good, accurate, set of scales capable of weighing up to 25Kg would be really useful too,
- please give us a call if you have one you don't need, or know of a spare one.