When lockdown hit us, it hit hard; closing businesses, markets and boot fairs alike and leaving business owners with no real income and nowhere for residents to shop locally. Step up the Schools of Kings Hill Virtual Market, plugging the gap between local residents and business owners by providing an online ‘market’, which at the same time also supports three primary schools in Kings Hill: Valley Invicta at Kings Hill, The Discovery School and Kings Hill Primary.
The virtual market is the brainchild of local resident and mum of three, Christine Anderson who has been organising events and supporting the local area for a number of years now.
Christine knew that the task might be too much for one person to handle, so reached out to local mum and friend Helen Daniels who immediately jumped aboard to get the virtual market off the ground and running in November 2020.
We caught up with Christine to find out a little bit more about the virtual market and how it’s been supporting local schools.
“By creating the online market we’ve been able to support the three schools by paying pitch fees and we call it a ‘stall’. This year we’ve held Christmas, Spring and Summer markets and raised around £2,000, which we’ve shared equally.
“Schools have bought balance bikes, normal bikes, P.E equipment, and Valley Invicta even managed to buy football goals – allowing them to have matches with other schools.
“The Discovery School even put money towards a sound system for the school.”
During a time where 99% of shops were closed, how helpful has this been for businesses and customers over the past 8 months?
“I think it’s been super helpful, it’s been great to engage with customers still, to show what we have local on our doorstep, especially when shops were shut and people were quite restricted in what they could buy locally.
“It’s also brought some really unique businesses with some great customer service. We’ve had some business start-ups where people have used us to do that and it’s been incredibly successful to get some word of mouth out and get some great trade from the stall and the market.”