Over 100 handbags collected by milliner for Love Grace

MILLINER Katie Vale Designs in Barleylands Craft Village in Essex has collected more than 100 handbags for charitable initiative, Love Grace. This was set up by Grace Millane’s family, who live locally, to create a legacy in her name. Now with nine drop-off points around the UK, Love Grace collects and fills new and nearly new handbags with essentials to provide practical support for women who need refuge and a safe haven from harmful relationships. 

Katie Vale, who owns and runs the eponymous millinery near Billericay and knows Grace’s cousin, said:

“We have been overwhelmed by the number of handbags donated both by customers and by people who are not regular visitors to Barleylands but who want to support women in need. In the last nine months over 100 handbags of all shapes and sizes have been dropped into the shop as well as toiletries amounting to two huge boxes. It’s a cause that means a lot to many people, and I have been touched by how many have involved their children in filling and donating the bags and explaining the value of helping others through simple acts.”

In total, more than 600 bags have been collected by Love Grace since last summer and donated to three different Essex refuges including Changing Pathways, Next Chapter, Safer Steps, as well as to EDAN Lincs in Lincolnshire, The Pennine Domestic Violence Group and two more in Wales and Oxfordshire.

Each bag, tied with a white ribbon and a label saying Love Grace x, is filled with everyday essentials for those who have to leave their homes without any personal belongings when their circumstances have become dangerous. Many of these women will pack for their children but often don’t pack much for themselves.

Grace’s family said: “To continue Grace’s legacy, we aim to offer a small bag of help to those who suffer from violence and domestic abuse. Domestic Violence and male violence towards women is a bigger issue than people realise as it’s not talked about.  We wish to draw attention to it, allow people to speak up and hopefully educate, with a view to people calling out their friends and colleagues on behaviour they don’t agree with, and to empower women to leave abusive relationships.”

Grace’s family has also been fundraising for The White Ribbon charity here and in New Zealand through events run by family and friends, hockey matches played in her name and selling a bracelet ‘Grace’s Ribbon’ designed and sold by local jewellery maker LL Loves.  

To donate a new or nearly-new handbag and brand new toiletries to Love Grace, drop them into Katie Vale Designs at Barleylands Craft Village, Thursday-Saturday 10am-4pm.