A POPULAR Tavistock charity bookshop is appealing for volunteers to continue its work in supporting humanitarian aid in East Africa.

The Oxfam Bookshop in Market Street is getting busier and busier and in the six years the shop has now been open for it has firmly established itself in the town.

The shop has been very successful at raising increased funds for Oxfam every year it has been open and it raised more than £35,000 in the 2016/17 financial year.

Its success has also created employment and a new part-time deputy shop manager has been employed.

Shop manager Val Sharpe said: ‘Tavistock is an amazingly supportive community to Oxfam, in the form of support for both shops.

‘The bookshop is blessed with regular, fantastic donations — a lot of which are Gift Aided, which enables Oxfam to receive an extra 25 per cent of the sale value.

‘We have lots of regular customers and receive many wonderful comments and compliments, so a huge thank you must go to Tavistock.

‘In addition to the locals, visitors to the town always seem to enjoy finding us and love such things as our unusual up-cycled range on top of the books and music.

‘The shop is large and still has lots of potential for development.

‘To help with this we are currently looking to increase the size of our volunteer team and welcome interest from anyone who thinks they would like to help.

‘It is a very social shop and there is lots to be learned and new experiences to be gained.

‘Volunteers generally need to have at least four hours a week they can offer the shop and anyone interested in books, music, research, making the up-cycled range, selling online, making the tea, doing the banking and more is very welcome to come in and meet us to find out more.’

Oxfam’s current appeal is the East Africa Crisis Appeal. Millions of families are facing starvation in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Southern Sudan.

Oxfam now urgently needs to scale up the work it is doing in these areas, largely around the area of clean water and sanitation, to save lives.

The work of Oxfam can be supported in many ways, as well as helping the shops in town to raise funds, donations can be made in the shops and donations of goods taken there.

Anyone who is interested in volunteering can visit the shop, or call 01822 613901 for more information.