A small storage room at the Burns Lake Thrift Shop used to offer enough space to keep various donation items, including winter clothing, all year round.
Now the room only provides enough space to store all the Christmas decorations.
“We used to be able to store things for the whole year here; we used to have only one shelf for Christmas decorations; we don’t have space anymore,” said Jeanie Reimer, President of the Burns Lake and District Healthcare Auxiliary.
Since the re-use sheds were closed in September 2015, donations to the Burns Lake Thrift Shop have nearly doubled, and the kind of items received have been getting bigger and heavier, according to Reimer.
Even with re-use sheds about to reopen, the healthcare auxiliary is still convinced they need a bigger building.
“This building is old; we’ve had it remodelled as much as we can, but we need a new building,” said Reimer.
However, finding a new building in town has proven to be a much more difficult task than they had anticipated.
“We’ve really been looking in the past year and we can’t find it,” said Reimer. “We thought we had something and it fell through.”
Since there’s not enough space to store all donations, many items end up getting shipped to organizations such as the Salvation Army while other items get recycled.
“Nothing is going to waste,” said Reimer. “It’s all being re-used somewhere.”
The significant increase in donations and the fact that the healthcare auxiliary has recently lost some of its members has resulted in members feeling overwhelmed.
“We’re overwhelmed every day,” said Reimer. “Everybody is getting burned out.”
Although the group has currently 21 members and about 40 volunteers, their average age is 75. The leader of the Friday crew is 93 years old.
“We do not have the manpower; our people are getting older and we need younger volunteers,” said Reimer.
“We need more members; more volunteers; more money and a new building,” she added.
The Burns Lake and District Healthcare Auxiliary was able to generate $74,000 from donations in 2015. The organization distributed approximately $56,000 back to the community in 2015, providing medical equipment to the Lakes District Hospital and Health Centre and furniture to The Pines.
In addition, the healthcare auxiliary provided a $2000 bursary to high-school students, free merchandise to house fire victims and free clothing to the Elizabeth Fry Society.
People interested in volunteering can stop by the Thrift Shop and pick up a registration form