Trash Talk
New look at HST-free Goodwill
August 19, 2010
Ellen Moorhouse
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Back-to-school time looms, along with all of the attendant getting and spending. Why not check out Goodwill for needed supplies, promote reuse and enjoy HST-free shopping?
This week I dropped into the not-for-profit organization’s brand new 11,000-square-foot flagship store just south of The Queensway, on the east side of Islington Ave. in Etobicoke. A tall metal tower with a Goodwill sign at the top helps identify the location, which opened in early June.
Big, light, fresh and well-organized, it will change the way you think about the second-hand chain that recycles household goods and clothing and offers employment opportunities for the vulnerable. The store also has convenient parking and a drive-through drop off if you have belongings to recycle.
A provincial civil servant, who was looking through women’s suits and dresses and had found an elegant, beige ensemble with a satin collar and Zahra label, said she visits the store once a week and checks online ( www.goodwill.on.ca) for 50-per-cent-off days: “It has become an addiction for me.”
She was reluctant to give her name; she didn’t want her friends to know where she and her teenage daughter buy their clothes. Her preferences run to Jones of New York, Talbots and Liz Claiborne. Her daughter also buys her books there. (They found a recent $36 volume about Nelson Mandela for $6.)
The single mother discovered Goodwill a year ago, when she dropped into the outlet at Dundas St. in Islington, killing time, like many mothers, while her daughter finished an extracurricular activity. She was astonished at the quality of the store and the merchandise.
Among her Goodwill finds: a beige version of a black purse she had already purchased at Feetfirst for $36. She got it for $6 at 50 per cent off at Goodwill. Her daughter found an Aritzia sweater for $3.50, which would have cost close to $100 at the brand’s boutiques.
Goodwill, Greater Toronto, Central and Eastern Ontario, has been going through a renaissance under its president Ken Connelly. The human resources specialist, former teacher and Benedictine monk with a PhD in philosophy, had retired from the business world to write a book, but took a short–term contract at Goodwill. A decade later, he’s still working for the social enterprise, which has its own Three Rs: “Reuse, Resell and Recruit.”
He has brought the Japanese concept of “kaizen,” continuous improvement, to the organization, which marks its 75th anniversary this year and employs about 700. Stores are being upgraded to create a pleasant shopping experience, and merchandise is moved through the outlets quickly, so, like the provincial government employee, you have to visit regularly or miss a bargain.
Artful Trash
There’s something about chairs put out in the garbage that inspires emotion and concern. After the Aug. 7 Trash Talk about Matt Cahill and his Conversations with Abandoned Chairs project, in which he photographs discarded seats and posts them online, than we heard about graphic designer Moira Stevenson.
She had filled up her Toronto porch with rescued chairs until she had no more room. At that point she turned to photography and art to honour these trashed souls. She posts images on her blog “A Safe Place for Chairs”, where she enhances the images, giving chairs the settings she thinks they deserve, even as they languish somewhere in landfill.
She has also created animated shorts about junked chairs coming alive and getting their last wish (www.chairitycase.blogspot.com). Formally of Toronto’s Little Italy and Queen West, Stevenson is now working in the film industry overseas in London, a city of flats, where she laments that junked chairs rarely appear on the streets, ending up instead in dumpsters at the rear of buildings.
Email questions or comments to e_moorhouse@sympatico.ca
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