Staff at Kenilworth book shop overwhelmed by customers support for their latest hedgehog appeal

Tamsin Rosewell and Judy Brook, who are business partners at Kenilworth Books put out an appeal last week for kitchen roll.

The appeal was launched after the pair heard that Hedgehog Friendly Town, a hedgehog rescue based in Stratford, needed more supplies of kitchen roll.

Tamsin and Judy took to social media to appeal to their customers for help and in just a week they were donated more than 100 rolls.

"The appeal has been absolutely magnificent and we had enough to build Kenilworth Castle," said Tamsin. "We have worked with the hedgehog rescue for many years and we also have a collection tin in the shop for them.

"We are aware at this point in the year the rescue is full of hoglets (baby hedgehogs) and we asked them if there was anything that we could get for them and they asked us for kitchen roll. They use to to keep the hoglets clean, to clean up after them as hoglets are messy eaters and they use it when they medicate the hoglets.

"It is a very basic thing but they go through quite a lot of it.

"There are six different hedgehog rescues around Kenilworth and between here and Stratford so it all helps.

"We put a call out to our customers over Facebook and Twitter last Wednesday to ask them to add some kitchen roll to their shop lists and to bring it in to us so we could take it to the rescue.

"Our customers raised an abundance of kitchen roll. We counted 142 rolls as of Wednesday morning, which is brilliant.

"I only just managed to fit it all into my boot and back seat of my car. I took it all to the rescue yesterday evening (Wednesday February 6)."

The team at Kenilworth Books have a strong relationship with the hedgehog rescue and they have been supporting the charity for many years.

Tamsin said: "The charity is important to us. Since 2016 we have raised more than £4,000 for them. We have customers who come in specially to donate to the hedgehogs and people who come into the shop to talk about hedgehogs.

"They are a charity and are funded entirely by donations and they have to pay for everything like medication and heating and so on.

"We also have a much-loved customer of ours, Rene, who knits tiny hoglets that we sell inside the shop. She started off making brown ones and now we have a wide range of different one and some that are even sparkly."

Hedgehog Friendly Town rehabilitates and releases hedgehogs back to the wild. They also provide advice to people who want to help hedgehogs.

Schoolgirls Kyra Barboutis and Sophie Smith run Hedgehog Friendly Town and over the last three and a half years they have cared for nearly 400 hedgehogs.

They said that they were "amazed and delighted with the huge mountain of kitchen roll donated by the customers of Kenilworth Books."

To find out more about Hedgehog Friendly Town click here.