WELCOME TO SKEM FIRST

SUPPORT LOCAL & LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE!

About Us

Skem First is a trading style of Skelmersdale Community Enterprise CIC. Originally started as a Facebook group with the intention of bringing schools, businesses, community groups, faith groups and residents into one online central hub, we have now expanded to become the go-to place that promotes everything good about Skelmersdale.

We champion local business, the local economy and everything that is great about our beautiful town.

Our main aim is to spread our simple message of
Support Local & Love Where You Live!

be kind

We could all do with a little more kindness in our lives, both giving and receiving it. Whatever you do, choose to do it kindly. We'll see massive transformation in this town if people adopt this simple message.
Support Local

Whenever considering to shop, eat, drink, or play, please consider Skem First. It boosts the local economy and local businesses are often first to support local charities & events.
Love where you live

This means respecting our beautiful town and everything in it. Please don't litter, fly-tip, graffiti or cause any other type of anti-social behaviour that paints Skelmersdale in a bad light. We have a lot to love about this town.

Christmas Cars

Christmas 2020 was the “Covid Lockdown” Christmas. All school plays, nativities, and other festivities were cancelled.

Skem First wanted to spread some much-needed Christmas Cheer so “Christmas Cars” was born. Covering our cars in thousands of fairy lights, we hit the streets of Skelmersdale with our windows down and Christmas songs blasting from our speakers.

Thank you to everyone that came out to support Christmas Cars in 2020 & 2021, we look forward to seeing you again in 2022 and beyond.

We rely on the generous donations of local businesses and residents to cover the cost of the lights and fuel so if you’d like to donate please consider clicking the Donate button or putting some money in the buckets when Christmas Cars come round again in 2022.

what we're doing

Skem First champions everything that is good about our beautiful town. Supporting local businesses, awarding incredible youth, arranging community cleanups, hosting community events & so much more. Check out some of the things we’ve been up to over the past 2 years.

PROMOTING Local Businesses

Skelmersdale is blessed to have so many small, independent retailers throughout the town. We offer local businesses a free platform to promote their products and services on our Facebook group which as of September 2022 has over 13,000 members.

Many local businesses do incredibly well out of sharing their offerings in the group.

We often visit local businesses too and take pictures and write honest reviews about our experiences.

Supporting local businesses provides jobs, feeds local families & boosts our local economy.

Community Clean Ups

Throughout the year we organise community litter picks. Our most successful one being with Woodlands Primary School where over 50 people attended. We removed tons of rubbish from Westheads Clough & the children also got to meet two of our local PCSOs who were happy to come along and thank the schoolchildren for their efforts.

If you’d like to get involved in litter picking please contact us for more information. We can ensure you get litter pickers, white bags and know how to report your litter picks for collection.

Youth AWARDS

We fully embrace that the children of today are the leaders of tomorrow. We want to encourage positive attitudes amongst our town’s young people.

In 2020 we started the Skem First Youth Awards and awarded 17 Skelmersdale Youths for outstanding contributions to our town throughout 2020. We asked local businesses to sponsor Cadbury’s Chocolate Hampers and delivered them on behalf of the business to the youths that were awarded them.

This grew to over 40 local youths being recognised in 2021. We asked WLBC Mayor, Cllr Gordon Johnson to present the awards and provide a certificate too.

We’ll continue to recognise our incredible young people each year and rely on the generosity of local businesses and residents to sponsor the awards. If you’d like to help towards sponsoring an amazing young person, please click the donate button below.