In a world awash with good causes, many of us probably like the idea of raising some money for the charity of our choice. But when it comes to it, like our new year’s resolutions, it doesn’t happen. Life gets in the way. There are only so many hours in the day and there’s way too much other stuff going on - going to work, paying the bills, getting food on the table and all the rest.

But what if you could raise funds for your charity of choice with little or no effort at all? Well, you can!

Barrow Community Library (part of BUSCA), along with many other charities in the country, takes advantage of a fund- raising platform run by a Midlands-based organisation called, what else,  https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/

Essentially, all you need to do is sign up on the easyfundraising website and buy something from a participating on-line retailer. Once you’ve bought whatever it is, the retailer pays a percentage of how much you spent, as a donation to whichever charity you want to support. Some retailers don’t pay much, but others pay quite a lot (insurance comparators and accommodation booking companies like Booking.com and Hotels.com). And some retailers, like Tesco and John Lewis are even enabling this to happen in-store now.

It must be more complicated than that, surely? Well, a little, but not much. If you’re interested in knowing more about this to help support the village library, you can find all you need to know about how to set this up on our website using the link: https://www.barrowcommunitylibrary.org.uk/support-us/easy-fundraising.html along with who to contact if you’re having difficulty and you need a bit of one-to-one assistance.

Since the library began this in December last year, we’ve managed to raise £600, which is great, but it would be fantastic to grow it some more. It doesn’t matter what you spend, we’d love you to give it a go.

Guy Silk