The Care & Share Thrift Shop is located at 33 Ringwood Drive. The shop has been serving Stouffville since 1981, and in three different locations. You may not have noticed, but the sign in front of their building carries the following subtext – Where Every Purchase is a Gift to the World. There is a story behind this tagline.
One hundred years ago, calls for help came from Mennonites in southern Russia where war, disease and famine had left them in desperation. “Brethren! Help us, we are perishing!” wrote one man to Mennonites in the United States. “The famine is raging more and more, and suffering is increasing daily, yes, hourly.” Mennonites and Mennonite Brethren groups formed a “central committee” in July 1920 to coordinate their responses to this crisis. Together, they pledged to help hungry people, including those who were suffering in southern Russia (present-day Ukraine).
Over the next several years, the committee, which took on the name Mennonite Central Committee, provided food for as many as 25,000 people at times, as well as shipped in tractors and seeds to plant for the future. (written by Linda Espenshade, 2019, mcccanada.ca).
100 years later, in 2020, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) celebrated its centennial year of service. MCC has worked in over 50 countries around the world. They partner with local churches and organizations with similar values to amplify collective impacts. To simplify MCC’s broad impact and wide-reaching service delivery, they focus on three areas: Relief, Development, and Peace.
In addition to MCC’s international work, they have provincial offices that offer programs here at home, including justice and reconciliation, poverty reduction, supporting refugees, and abuse prevention. One can peruse their website and read about active programs in each province.
Returning to the topic of the Care & Share, 50 years ago, a grassroots movement of MCC Thrift shops was born. In 1972, four women endeavored to open the very first MCC Thrift shop in Altona, Manitoba, mainly selling secondhand clothes to people in the region. None of them thought the shop would even last the year. But instead, the shop began to thrive and produced about $1,000 for MCC during the first six months of operation. That vision for turning used clothing and household items into funds to support MCC’s work at home and around the world was successful.
There are now more than 85 shops that provide millions of dollars each year for MCC’s work at home and around the world. Six of these shops are in Ontario, with the Care & Share being one of them.
Joel Knights is the Volunteer Coordinator at the Care and Share. He explained that each thrift shop was allowed to develop its own identity to best fit with the local community. Care and Share started out at 6240 Main Street in Downtown Stouffville, which is now the home of the 55+ Club. Joel was born and raised in Stouffville. In fact, “My grandmother volunteered at the thrift at 6240 Main,” said Joel.
Joel further noted that Care and Share has evolved over time from being a traditional thrift store to a boutique shop of gently used items. “In Stouffville, we receive upscale donations,” said Joel. “We inspect and test everything. We focus on quality, not quantity.” They sort store inventory into several categories: items on display for retail sale; special items and collectibles on display for the silent auction; and, items for sale on their online store, which are exclusively online.
The Care and Share is very mindful of waste. The MCC thrift stores divert 600,000 cubic feet of waste from landfills each year. “Single-use products and fast fashion fill up dumpsters and damage the environment, but we have partners that will take items that the shop cannot sell,” added Joel. We donate items to local charities including the Crisis Pregnancy Centre, UR Home, and City Street Outreach.
A lot of Care and Share’s floor space had been taken up by bulky furniture. During the pandemic, there was a need to free up floor space for physical distancing. Much of the furniture had to go, yet the shop has continued to focus on housewares, home décor, books, media/electronics and clothing. They believe that furniture will return as an offering, but they may limit it to special events like tent sales. The shop is classified as a charity, and being so, there are no sales taxes collected on sold items.
Joel had lived overseas as a child and then left Canada again as a young adult. He was gone for 11 years. In that time, he went to Bible College in Australia, met his wife, and had three children overseas. They were last living in Belgium prior to their return. Now Joel is one of seven full time staff that manage the Care and Share. He oversees 160 volunteers. “We depend on volunteers – the store is open 6 days a week, including being open until 8pm Thursdays and Fridays.”
Volunteers generally fill the following positions: cashier, receiving, sorting, pricing, displays, workroom helper, and kitchen helper. They are open to assisting young adults in obtaining high school volunteer hours and learning life skills to assist them in future job prospects; currently, they have 30-40 student volunteers, mixed with over 100 working adults and seniors. “Our youngest volunteer is 10 years old and comes in with her mom, while the oldest is 90,” said Joel.
The Care and Share has evolved and grown over the years, and Joel mentions how much Stouffville has grown as well. He has a fondness for the Stouffville Reservoir, where he rode the dirt track circuit on his bike as a child, and now he is doing that with his children.
The Care and Share is a place that actually thinks globally and acts locally. An archive of stories about the MCC community and international outreach at mcccanada.ca, or about the history of the MCC thrift shops at thrift.mcc.org/50. Finally, more about our local Care and Share Thrift Shop can be found at mccthriftontario.com/stouffville, or you can visit in person at 33 Ringwood Dr.
