Hospice Halifax team collecting and selling antiques to raise cash

Christine Morrison Grace sets aside every Thursday to drive around town to pick up antiques, collectibles and other vintage items from donors all for a good cause.

The items are beingsold to supportthe operations of Halifax's first residential care hospice, a10-bed, two-storey facility slated to open on the campus of the Atlantic School of Theology in December 2017.

The antiques are being sold through a series of monthly pop-up galleries with the hope to raise enough money to fundat least one-third of the hospice's operating costs.

MorrisonGrace isthe volunteer manager of the initiative for Hospice Halifax.She says there's a comfort in knowing the legacyof one's antiques will live on.

"When you buy antiques, a lot of the value you get is the story that comes with it who it belonged to, where it came from you know it came over with their grandmother from Ireland, it was a rocking chair that they were rocked in as a baby. That kind of legacy lives on and there's a certain comfort in that," said Morrison Grace.

Pop-up galleries

Because the hospice does not yet have a physical space to display and sell the antiques, it will soon host the third of six monthly pop-up galleries. The next pop-up and drop-off event will be held this fall.

An event that had been planned forAug. 20 and 21 at the formerPort of Wines store at 5431 Doyle St. in Halifax has been postponed.

Among the goods up for sale are:

• A fibreglass rocking horse for two adults.
• A wood-framed, original charcoal drawing of a striking man and an infant boy.
• A pine ice box.
• An 1877 framed cover of Harper's Weekly.
• A rare Phillips reel-to-reel tape recorder.
• A manual typewriter that was used by Halifax writer and artist John Fraser.

The rocking horse was donated by a woman who moved to Nova Scotia from out west.

"She actually won it at a fundraiser for a theatre in Vancouver," Morrison Grace said. "It was built as part of a set for a theatre production in Vancouver."

In November, the hospice will have a larger auction to sell some of the higher-end pieces that have been donated.