Monday 7 November 2016

Religious-affiliation thrift stores

There are a number of thrift stores that are religiously-affiliiated (all Christian). First and foremost is, of course, the Salvation Army (too numerous to mention but remember that most outside greater Vancouver and Victoria are independent of each other) with the Mennonites having their Central Committee shops in Powell River, Vancouver, Surrey, Abbotsford (2), Mission, Yarrow, Chilliwack and Kelowna a second.  A missionary group called Bibles for Missions operates quite a few (Chilliwack (2), Duncan, Victoria, Kelowna, Langley, Prince George and Cranbrook) but interestingly the Abbotsford branch is separately organised from the others. Langley also has 2 International Christian Responses and there's WorldServe in White Rock.

The denomination that has the most otherwise seems to be the United Church.  These include

Sicamous
Winfield
Kelowna (First United)
Westbank
Peachland
Burnaby (South Burnaby)
Surrey (Northwood)- haven't checked this one
Vancouver (First, Grace and Wilson Heights United) - haven't checked any of these
North Van (Mount Seymour)
Gibsons
Kamloops
Duncan
Nanaimo (St Andrew's, Brechin near Departure Bay seems to host a flea market)
Victoria (Gordon Head,  James Bay, Oak Bay, St Aidan's + St. John's in North Saanich)
Coquitlam (Trinity)
Golden
The Osoyoos and Como Lake churches in Coquitlam are reported to have shops but I haven't checked them yet.

Prince George, Revelstoke, and Oakridge in Vancouver have unfortunately closed their shops in recent months.

Some hold once a year events and these are Knox in Vancouver and Highlands in North Van.

The other Protestant church thrift shops include St Barnabas, St John's and St Stephen the Martyr Anglican in New West, Cobble Hill and Burnaby respectively, St Andrew's Presbyterian in Victoria, and the Duncan Seventh Day Adventist in Duncan.

Other Protestant churches with thrift shops include on in Kamloops (Westsyde), one in New West that assists a Pentecostal church in Manila.

There are also gospel missions to the homeless poor with thrift shops in Vancouver, Kelowna and Kamloops.

Catholic thrift shops are a little rarer.  There is Mother Teresa's Place of St Mary's in Chilliwack and the Pro-Life Society in Kelowna.   Various branches of Saint Vincent de Paul are active with 6 shops in greater Victoria, 2 in Vancouver and one in Kamloops. The Catholic Women's League has a shop in Squamish that I haven't had the opportunity to visit.  Schools may hold periodic thrift sales. The Catholic school attached to St Edward the Confessor in Duncan holds an annual event in September as does St Joseph's in Kelowna.

For multi-denominational, there is of course the Churches of Salmon Arm thrift store.  One of the largest in the province.  The United and Anglican churches in Castlegar also jointly run a thrift shop.

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