The thrift store at Mount Pearl Senior High School is not unlike any used clothing shop you find yourself browsing through on a lazy Saturday afternoon, complete with organized racks and staff eager to help out. From left are some of the people involved in operating the store including Grade 11 students Jayme Coles and Jayda Baines, Grade 12 students Shelby Slade and Abigail Bellamy, and Grade 11 student Samantha Flood. Chad Feehan photo
By Chad Feehan / Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
After Mount Pearl Senior High School ceased teaching Grade 9 within its walls, a couple of rooms connected by a door became empty on the second floor.
Not wanting to see a good opportunity go to waste, a group of students have made use of the space by opening a thrift store where all of the clothes are completely free.
Now both the rooms and the clothes are seeing new, fresh purposes.
“We have the space, students need clothes. There are people who can’t afford clothes and clothes are expensive,” said the store’s co-manager Shelby Slade. “We figured we’d start this little thing.”
The shop has been in operation since December and runs a few times a week, mainly during lunchtime hours.
Students can take up to three items per visit, which are folded and bagged by the attendant at hand. And just like your standard thrift store, the offerings can change from week to week.
For many students who work the shop, their hours spent amongst the clothes are an easy way to fill their quota of volunteer hours in their career education course.
Grade 11 student Jayda Baines was having trouble getting her volunteer time locked in, but luckily the lunchtime hours ended up being her saving grace.
“The school is helping me and I’m helping the students get whatever they want,” she said. “I like this because I can help people, but I’m also getting my hours.”
For attendant Samantha Flood, working in the shop is great preparation for work in retail outlets that are so common for young people.
“Especially as teenagers, we tend to go to these types of jobs,” she said. “Learning how to restock, greet customers and fold things, I think that really helps.”
Co-manager Abigail Bellamy appreciates how the shop serves as a solution for reducing waste in the textiles industry.
“It’s become so popular in the last few years because of the pollution caused by textiles,” she said. “It’s better so we’re not constantly buying fifty dollars on clothes every time we go to the mall.”
Even clothes with imperfections like holes or rips can be repurposed into DIY projects.
“We have some clothes in the back that have holes in them that we know some students will take and repurpose,” Slade said. “I’m after taking a shirt and cropping it. I even turned a shirt into a pair of pants once. Even clothes that are no good on a day-to-day basis we can fix.”
The team has had a solid 50 or 60 bags of donated clothes come through the doors since December, with groups of students perusing the racks every day.
“It’s been great to see people coming in and doing something with the school,” Bellamy said.
The shop is currently on the hunt for an additional rack that would house clothes for teachers and parents, as they often receive clothes that students might not wear.
As successful as the store has been, its future will be in limbo when Grade 9 is reintroduced back into the school, taking over the space once again.
Bellamy is hopeful they will figure something out, even if she will have graduated by that time.
As Bellamy talks about her passion project, she sorts through the growing piles of clothes that are to be washed and sorted, often spying garbs that she may pick out for herself.
“It’s amazing some of the stuff you can find,” she said.
