On 15 December, 22-year-old Rosina Evans published a post on Facebook to express her disappointment that more than £300 worth of her new stock had gone missing – believed stolen – from her unlocked car.
‘I’ve worked so hard on this venture and to see that much money, which has still yet to be paid back to the printer, hard work and a hell of a lot of heart go down the drain is absolutely gut wrenching,’ said Miss Evans in her post.
Miss Evans, who works as a metal-works painter at Rylance Ltd, explained that she had been on her way to post some stock from her recently opened online store, ‘Ratz shop’, before Christmas. After failing to reach the post office in time she left the merchandise in her unlocked car overnight at La Providence estate in St Lawrence. When she arrived back at the vehicle in the morning her T-shirts, prints and handwritten notes – which had been left on the passenger seat in a USC-branded bag – were all missing.
Miss Evans’s Facebook post, which soon gained public attention, was flooded with comments and shared over 700 times.
‘Thankfully a friend of mine, Lee, offered to set up a GoFundMe page after seeing my post on Facebook in which I had tried to reach out to people,’ said Miss Evans. ‘Amazingly, a staggering £580 was raised, and out of that I was able to restock and even had leftovers, which I will be donating to a charity of my choice.
‘The outcome of my Facebook post was absolutely breathtaking. To go from such a low, what with my hard work going down the drain, to an extreme high, thanks to everyone’s kind words and generosity. You don’t realise how much good can come from social media until you reach out in the hope of restoring faith in humanity.’
Miss Evans’s T-shirts, which have now been restocked, can be found on her online store at Ratzshop.bigcartel.com, along with her prints and artwork stickers.
She added: ‘I’d also like to give a big shout-out to Jersey’s Madhatter shop and crew. They very kindly offered to stock my T-shirts and prints, so you can now purchase Ratz pieces from them too, which I’m obviously ecstatic about.
‘In regards to the charity, I’m still deciding. I’m wanting to find somewhere that is smaller and doesn’t get as much funding, where £150 will make a difference.
‘Once I have decided, I’ll be sure to let [people on] Facebook know.’
