It’s one of Petersfield’s greatest assets: A place where little or nothing goes to waste, run by the community, for the community.

But it seems that even the award-winning team behind Free Shop Petersfield have been subjected to abuse, prompting the message: no volunteers means no shop.

“The majority of our customers love us and we love them,” said Jen King, who was recently handed a Mayor’s Award for her tireless work at the non-profit organisation.

“We have a good rapport with customers, because a lot of us are local, know their families and we’re a community based project. But on small occasions we’ve had abuse.”

The shop recently posted an upsetting message online, saying they’ve had “multiple instances” over the last few months of some people using foul language and showing “extreme disrespect” towards volunteers.

“We generally feel appreciated but we do get times when customers are disrespectful and we’ve had visitors being verbally abusive,” said Jen Steventon, with customers being urged to show “kindness and respect” to the team.

“When someone is being confrontational, especially when it’s towards one of the older volunteers here, it’s upsetting. I think part of the problem may be insecurity and the element of stress getting food, but want to make it clear we are volunteers and nobody gets paid.

“It takes a lot of work to run this place – Jen and I have been here since 9 this morning (Saturday) for instance, and we were out collecting until 10 last night.”

Despite the pleas, there’s also a lot of positivity at Free Shop these days with new flooring going in, generous donations being made and further improvements planned, with Nick Broom of the Petersfield Men’s Shed installing new shelving last Saturday.

For more details look for Free Shop Petersfield on Facebook or email [email protected]