Whitehorse community thrift store needs financial support to become a reality

Love 2 Thrift Yukon is looking for financial community support in order to get a permanent thrift store up and running in Whitehorse.

The new local organization has held five pop-up thrift stores in locations across the city this year. But they said it's not sustainable to keep holding pop-up shops in the long run.

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"A permanent location would certainly be crucial for this to be sustainable," said Angela Krueger, steering committee member for the Whitehorse Community Thrift Store.

"We can't continue to just do pop-ups," she said because it takes a lot of time and many people to put them on.

The organization, made up of Yukon NGO's and individuals, has started a Go Fund Me page to raise $70,000 in order to open a permanent location.

The money would help pay for rent of the location for the first year, and pay for a manager to run the store.

So far they have raised just over $2,400.

The last thrift store to close in Whitehorse was the Salvation Army in Spring 2017.

The organization plans to donate part of their profits from the permanent store to local non-profit groups. Hours worked by volunteers for the business will count as a percentage. Each volunteer can then decide which non-profit gets the volunteer's share of the profit at the end of the fiscal year.

Right now the organization is unable to take donations of items from the public because they don't have the space or the resources to manage donations. They do take some donations from the public who reach out and set up meetings.

"This is for the community," said Krueger. "We are at the tipping point if Whitehorse wants to see this go forward we need to support it financially in order to find rootsfor this initiative."