Every year, we celebrate National Thrift Shop Day – finding unique ways to showcase all the good that comes with buying pre-loved goods and donating back to thrift shops. But for 2025, we wanted to try something a little bigger that reached right across our city.
For National Thrift Shop Day on August 16, 2025, we teamed up with the Mustard Seed Thrift Store and FIND for a thrift-venture that took people from the north side of downtown all the way to the southside of Edmonton. Shoppers who stopped by each of these stores were given a thrift shop passport that was stamped during each stop folks made. Anyone with two or more stamps on their passports were then entered in to win a prize, courtesy of some of the amazing partners we have in the community like the Home Depot and Coca-Cola Canada Bottling Limited.
And while the tour and prizes were an excellent draw for people to explore our city’s amazing thrift shops, the real goal was to showcase how social enterprises connected to not-for-profit and charity groups are helping their efforts to eliminate poverty and homelessness.
What is a Social Enterprise?
As a quick definition, social enterprises are independent businesses that use for-profit commercial strategies to achieve a social, environmental, or community impact, reinvesting earnings towards missions around positive change.
Bissell Thrift Shop, the Mustard Seed Thrift Store, and FIND each have their not-for-profit organizations attached to them (Bissell Centre, the Mustard Seed, and Homeward Trust respectively) and funds from these stores go directly back into each organization’s programs and services. But that’s only the beginning of the impact these stores have on the community.
From employing people with lived experiences to ensuring essentials are affordable and within reach for people experiencing financial insecurity, these stores can be a lifeline for many people uncovering their unique pathways out of poverty and homelessness.
For Bissell Thrift Shop specifically, did you know we run a voucher program for people in programs? From our Family Supports Program to our Hope Terrace supportive living building, these vouchers provide people with free goods as they move through their journeys out of poverty.
But not only are these free and accessible goods, this helps people keep their personal autonomy and agency to decide for themselves what they need. And for many of these folks, it’s also an opportunity to learn how to shop for themselves — a luxury that many of the people we serve have not experienced for themselves.
How the day of exploring went for folks stamping their passports
With a strong mission at the forefront, folks from across the greater Edmonton area didn’t hesitate to pick up their passports and start exploring the city’s fantastic social enterprise thrift shops. At Bissell Thrift Shop alone, we saw close to 300 people come through the doors and explore — in fact, folks were eagerly lining up well before the store was open. And we definitely weren’t the only ones with a long line of people excited that they’re thrifting adventure can go towards something incredibly important.
By the end of the day, there were 114 entries submitted for the draw. And while we could only draw a couple of names from the entries, it seems like everyone who came through the doors of our awesome thrift shops were all winners that day. These are folks who got to explore parts of the city they may not have ventured into before and got to see how buying pre-loved goods helps the vulnerable people in their community.
We can’t thank everyone enough for this incredible day. We hope everyone who stopped by our shops (and explored the many other thrift shops in this city) had an amazing adventure — one that helped make a significant positive impact on your community.
