Kate

About the blogger:
Kate is from Sussex, just outside Brighton where she went to school. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford from 1998-2001. She didn't really know what to do after leaving university but took a fancy to a guy who worked on the organic farm opposite her home. So, entirely to impress him, set up a company called The Vegetable Plot which delivered a workshop (around a centrepiece Whodunnit play featuring vegetable characters) about healthy eating to local schools. Well…dressing up as a carrot, needless to say didn't impress this guy at all!

Kate then moved to Paris where she mostly worked for a travel author who wrote about the Middle East but did lots of other bits and bobs. She moved back to London after a year to do a masters course in Sustainable Development with an NGO called Forum for the Future. The course took her to work in lots of interesting places, but her placements in Glasgow and with a carpet tile manufacturer have probably had the most lasting influences on her life.

She noticed that all the customers were asking after affordable carpets and at the same time  saw loads of decent looking carpets just lying on the streets after being ripped out of places. Thinking that she might be able to match the supply and demand, she started Spruce Carpets.

Based in Glasgow, it collects donations of unwanted carpets, refurbishes them using a simple industrial cleaning process and then supplies and fits them at really low cost to people resettling from homelessness. They also run a training course in carpet fitting for local young people on the New Deal, and offer volunteer opportunities targeted at people who have experienced homelessness.

What keeps here going? In her words “I'd look even more stupid if I was involved with a carpet-recycling flop! “ Her ambition is to know enough about social enterprise to help others set them up, then retire and write a book.

Her interests include sleeping, reading and thinking up crazy ideas.

She is looking forward to the India journey to either gain the confidence to consider setting up a social enterprise abroad, or the contacts to work in the UK in partnership with overseas social enterprises, or the realisation that trying to solve her own local issues is the best she can do.

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