Running your own store has many positive sides: you get to buy fabulous, well designed clothes and useful, thoughtful gifts for your customers to choose from. You get to scope out new brands and labels really making a difference. And you are the decision maker behind what positive impact you can have as a business on your surrounding community. That last sentence is a really nice satin bow around the gorgeously wrapped present that is our shop. I’ve been lucky enough to be resident in Peckham for over 16 years now and have seen all the sides that this amazing locality can show me. I wanted our small store to have some sort of positive social impact on SE15 in whatever way we could and discovered Southwark Foodbank when I donated bags of food on the run up to Christmas a few years ago. Pecan and Southwark Foodbank work together to promote social inclusion to all and provide vital support for residents needing immediate help in the form of non-perishable food. Each case is referred by frontline professionals such as social services, GP’s and schools to determine the level of support needed. We called on our amazing friend Jenna Beby, found of ethical lifestyle brand Join to help us come up with a new scented candle where 100% of all profits would be donated to Southwark Foodbank. We already stock Join’s glorious range of candles and botanical mists, so we knew that they would be the perfect partner to help us in our mission. Respective heads (and noses) were called upon to create a totally new scent that would be gender neutral, positively priced and most importantly, make your home smell AMAZING. All of Join’s candles are vegan, made from soy wax and use essential oils (not their inferior botanical oil cousins) and burn cleanly. Even the packaging is recycled so your ethical desires are fully sated. Together we’ve created a comforting mix of rose geranium, neroli, a touch of lavender and black pepper to make ‘Nurture’. Launching in November, we’ve already donated over £360 to Pecan and Southwark Foodbank thanks to the generosity of all our customers and this ISN’T a limited edition run: we feel it’s important to support this incredibly important service as long as possible. If you keep buying, we’ll keep donating on your behalf.