From the Blog

After almost nine happy years, we’re packing up and shipping out of Holywood. Sadly, the time has come to move on and very soon, we’ll open the doors on our new office in Belfast. Party invites on the way.

Holywood has been an amazing home to Clearbox since we opened our doors in 2013. The community here really embraced us, and we made friends for life with many people and local business owners in the town.

From getting advance warnings of when the meatballs were going in the oven in Centra and sea walks armed with coffees and buns to having long and brilliant conversations about the only band that matters with Garry in his barbershop, we’ll never forget the kindness shown to us by the people of Holywood.

We could never fully repay the debt of gratitude we owe the town for the support we’ve received since we moved here in 2013, but we wanted to do something to say thank you.

As we move on, we’re making donations to two charities that support the Holywood community. After asking our team which good causes they’d like us to support, we’ve donated £1,000 to Camphill Community Holywood and £1,000 to TinyLife.

Camphill Community Holywood offers opportunities to adults through the provision of work and living environments, in a social, therapeutic, town-based community. The charity was nominated for a donation by Dani, Alex and Amy on our team. Dani explains why she nominated the charity for support.

“Camphill Holywood supports people with a learning disability and is an intrinsic part of the town’s community. Comprising of a residential care home and an organic café, bakery and food store that offers work experience to people with special needs, the charity relies on donations for the day-to-day running of these services. The café was a lunchtime favourite for many of our team members - the soup and olive loaf combination never failed to hit the spot - and nominating Camphill was my way of saying thank you for fuelling us with brain food over the past nine years.”

TinyLife is a brilliant charity that we’ve supported in the past through volunteering. TinyLife is Northern Ireland’s premature and vulnerable baby charity. It works to reduce premature birth, illness, disability and death in the six babies born every day in Northern Ireland. TinyLife is committed to providing a range of support services that meet the growing needs of families of premature babies locally.

TinyLife was chosen for the donation by Zoe, Ella, Nora and Hannah on our team. The charity is close to Ella’s heart, as she was born prematurely herself. Ella explains why she nominated the charity for the donation.

“Tiny Life is such a fantastic charity and the support it provides to families across Northern Ireland is amazing! Many years ago, I was a premature baby and from what my mum has told me, it’s incredibly stressful so hopefully this donation helps to ease the process for new parents. We’re so pleased be able to support Tiny Life with this donation and would encourage others to donate and take part in the charity’s fundraising events.”

Thank you for everything, Holywood.

We’ll be back soon for haircuts, cream buns and sea walks. Don’t go changing.