Brenda Shah, long-time volunteer at Newark Neighbours going back to the days of founder Peggy Anderson, couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Anderson wouldn’t have believed it either.
When Cindy Grant and the team of volunteers at the thrift store and food bank opened the doors to guests for a celebration of their new Virgil location, all they have accomplished to help the growing number of people in need in Niagara-on-the-Lake was revealed.
The highlight is the bright, beautifully decorated store front and desk — not your usual thrift store by any means — and then for the evening celebration, the clothes racks in the main space were moved to the side, the front desk turned into a wine station, and guests, many of them contributors, were given an opportunity to see what is behind the beautiful window displays seen from the street.
A tour of the building takes you through a large sorting area, with windows so volunteers can see what’s happening out front, with private office space and a washroom. The food bank with lots of new shelving and gleaming new commercial-sized freezer and refrigerator is in an area also separate and private, with its own entrance and comfortable waiting place for those who come in need of food — plus a beautiful, brightly painted wall mural made especially for the space by young Niagara Pumphouse art class students.
“It was a really amazing evening,” said Grant.
“We were all thrilled with it, all on a bit of a high that evening, and really pleased with the turnout.”
There was a good crowd in attendance,“and the store looked beautiful. The team worked very hard to get it set up, and it looked really wonderful,” she said, thanking the committee “for pulling it all together. It was a lot of hard work.”
Peller Estates supplied the wine — they had also supplied the property for Newark’s former location in recent years — and provided some high-top cocktail tables for the evening that made the space quite elegant.
And then it was back to reality, sorting and getting ready for Thanksgiving hampers — more new clients have come in to register, Grant said.
But they have had an outpouring of generosity from the community to help make it happen — their recent porch pick-up was a success, and food has continued to come in since.
The Niagara North Family Health Team asked for food donations at both their Virgil and Village locations, and Vineland Academy brought in a load of food, said Grant.
“One Old Town resident pulled up in an SUV filled to brimming with bags and boxes of food,” she said. “People have been so generous.”
At one point the food room was so stacked with food to be put away “you couldn’t move around the room. We’re more than stocked for Thanksgiving, and probably a good way toward Christmas.”
Cornerstone Community Church has already contacted her about a food drive Halloween night — they intend to distribute 1,000 paper grocery bags to people with a food list for Newark Neighbours, and pick the bags up full.
“We’ll be getting a lot of food at the end of that month,” said Grant.
During the evening celebration, Shah, who has just turned 90, reminisced about the small, crowded barn, about half the size of what it was when Newark moved out this spring. It had no running water, a freezer outside for food, no racks inside, just shelving for whatever clothes were dropped off — Anderson sold them at $5 for a full garbage bag — and some stacks of food at the back.
But although volunteers understood the need to move on, she and many others loved the beautiful surroundings at the former John Street location. “I started coming in ’95, I think,” she said. “I’d heard a lot about Peggy, and I wanted to help. And for me, it was a chance to get to know people from town.”
Shah ran a bed and breakfast and was busy in the summer, but in the winter Newark Neighbours became a place for her to meet locals, make new friends, and feel useful.
She was one of the Tuesday group — she laughed when she said “we called ourselves the Tuesday Tarts.” Some of them still volunteer, and stay in touch, enjoying social occasions with those who have retired and are still around. Shah was delighted to visit with some of them over a glass of wine at the celebration.
“They were all such good people,” she said of the volunteers she worked with. “They all did so much.”
But while she expressed some nostalgia for her days at the barn surrounded by nature, explaining that “Tuesdays felt like a holiday for me,” she just kept shaking her head at what she was seeing and saying, “I can’t believe it.”
Grant is having trouble believing the amount of food that is arriving daily at their new location.
The big sign out front, asking for donations, is a help, she said, raising awareness of the need that exists in this community to drivers as they pass by. Also important is “location, location, location,” with the Virgil store front in the middle of town.
As thrilled as volunteers were with their celebration, Grant added, “they are really excited to be able to help about 110 families this Thanksgiving.”
Hampers were being packed Wednesday and delivered Thursday.
She feels that with their move, Newark Neighbours “has launched a new generation” of helping people in need. “And once again, this community is demonstrating its extreme generosity.”