A new non-profit thrift store in Chatham has opened its doors during tough economic times in hopes of helping charities and a local school.
The store, newLIFE Thrift Store, opened to the public on Monday at 202 Queen St. in Chatham. The non-profit organization, operated solely by volunteers, is meant to offer financial support to Chatham Christian School and various charitable organizations across Chatham-Kent.
Board member Erin Smids said opening a location during the COVID-19 pandemic has been less than ideal.
"We've had to deal with a lot [fewer] people than what we were hoping for," she said. "But really everything has come into place, it's just gone a lot slower than we wanted it to go. It made it interesting that's for sure."
Smids said the thrift store is operating under current COVID-19 preventative measures in order to keep shoppers and volunteers safe.
"Everyone is going to be two metres apart, we have hand sanitizer, and the partitions like we need there to be, and there's a restriction on the number of shoppers," she said.
As for dropping off donations, Smids said there are two storage rooms behind the store where people can drive up to and drop-off items.
The newLIFE concept started a few years ago out of Smids' home. She called the experience of opening a physical location "surreal".
"When we started this, we were looking for a way to subsidize some of the tuition for Chatham Christian School so we had been doing Facebook sales out of my house for the last six years, then we started to look at actual physical buildings," she said.
Smids said volunteers were able to make approximately $65,000 over those six years for the school.
"Someone gifted us this location [on Queen Street] so we have started this store in under one condition. I wanted to be able to give some of the profits to local charities in Chatham-Kent," she said.
Smids said during the store's first month of operating, the first charity to receive support from newLIFE is going to be the Refuge Pregnancy Resouce Centre.
What sparked Smids' motivation years ago to even try to make money to support Chatham Christian School was her desire to pay it forward after the school showed support for her own family.
"It can be hard to meet the budget all the time so I just wanted something I could do myself to help out a little," said Smids. "If the community of Chatham is helping us out, it's really fulfilling to be able to donate back to something that people are going to see. [They're] going to see donations to the food bank, to Refuge, or to Westover Treatment Centre, or the men's shelter, or any of those [types of organizations].
Aside from providing financial support to the school, Principal Ken VanMinnen said the opening of newLIFE Thrift Store also acts as a way for more people to learn about Chatham Christian School.
“Our mission is to see Christian Education and our local charities thrive,” said VanMinnen in a statement. “It’s an exciting opportunity to be able to both bless the school and be a light in our community.”
Donations to newLIFE can be made during its operating hours from Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.