Thrift stores can be great places to shop. You never know what you’re going to find.
“I hate to go to a store where there are 40 dresses… the same,” shopper Lise Gregoire said. “Size 2, size 4, size 6, size 8 — all the way up to 20 and it’s all the same thing.
“In a store like this, you only have one.”
That’s why customers like Gregoire have been flocking to the new Thrift Shops for NOVA at Plaza Pointe-Claire. It’s the latest of six in the West Island.
When this location opened on Tuesday, volunteers couldn’t believe the turnout.
“It was fantastic,” store founder Elizabeth Parker said. “The local people supported us so well. It was incredible.”
She opened the first store in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue 19 years ago.
“It was to help NOVA, which was then the Victorian Order of Nurses, and they all rely on public funding,” she said. “And they couldn’t afford to pay the nurses back then.”
Nova West Island provides medical services free or at low cost to West Island families. The goods are donated and all the money from store sales, after expenses, go to NOVA. The stores are run by volunteers, some of whom, like Linda Dubeau, have needed NOVA nurses themselves.
“I know the money goes well to the nurses, who helped us out tremendously when my husband was dying.”
Parker dosen’t know yet if she’ll open another store, but if she does, she won’t have much to worry about, not with regulars like Gregoire.
“You find good stuff and it’s a good cause,” she said with a smile. “It’s win-win.”
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