CHILDREN’S charity Brainwave is celebrating the first birthday of its shop in Ottery.

The Mill Street store is Brainwave’s sixteenth, and opened on December 11, 2009. Shop supervisor Alison Potts said it had been a great year.

“We are very grateful to all of our customers and to the many people who have donated goods to us,” she said. “The money we raise goes to support the work that Brainwave does and without the generosity and support of these people we couldn’t support the hundreds of children whose future is made a little brighter’.

The national charity was established in 1982 and has its headquarters in Bridgwater, Somerset. It provides home based therapy programmes for children with cerebral palsy and other conditions such as development delay.

Retail manager Paul Evans: “We celebrated our first birthday with some tea and cakes as a little thank you to all of our volunteers, all of whom are local. They give up their time so freely and without them we couldn’t run the shop.

“For people who haven’t been in to see our shop, then Christmas is a great time to do so and we can guarantee a warm welcome.”