Moncton thrift shop closing to make way for more food bank storage space

La Boutique Encore has been serving the downtown Moncton, N.B., community for eight years, but by the end of June, they’ll have to close their doors.

The thrift shop is located inside the Peter McKee Community Food Centre, a food bank that helps roughly 200 people a day.

The food centre is planning on building a new cold storage space where the store is currently located because the need in the community is sky-high.

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Peter McKee Community Food Centre executive director Christine Taylor said they’ve maximized all of their current space.

“We don’t have the space for anymore pallets of food to come in and with more clients you need more food here. You need a larger inventory,” said Taylor.

Taylor said seniors, newcomers, international students and families who have never come before are flocking to the food bank on St. George Street.

There’s an increase in clients, but they’re going home with less food than they did two years ago.

“Because two years ago we had about 80 clients a day. Now we’re up to close to 200 and some days over 200, but the storage hasn’t changed,” she said.

The thrift shop is run by the House of Nazareth, a resource centre for the homeless located on Albert Street.

They made the closing announcement on their Facebook page a week ago.

“It is with great regret that we close La Boutique Encore, this spring,” the statement reads. “The Food Depot, which used to provide us with its space, must now take it back because of the growing number of customers. Current rent costs are unfortunately not allowing us to consider a move. We are proud to have served the community all these years and would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who has contributed to the success of the store as employees, volunteers, donors and customers.”

Eleanor Bannister frequents the thrift shop and said she’s sad to see it go.

“If I have money to go in, I usually go and check it out,” said Bannister. “I usually buy bedding and I found myself a dress. Bought myself another purse. I just look at stuff and if I know somebody who needs something I tell them to go over there, they have it.”

Taylor said La Boutique Encore has been a good tenant for eight years and there’s no animosity whatsoever.

“We’re sad to see them go because one of the services they did offer is they gave clothes to people if they needed it, certain times of the year and newcomers coming in. So, we were able to refer people there,” said Taylor. “But at the end of the day, we’re about feeding needy families and that’s what we have to focus on.”

CTV News reached out to the House of Nazareth for comment, but no one was available.

Taylor said planning for the new cold storage space will begin in July, but it’s a big project and it won’t happen overnight.

The hope is the extra storage space will allow clients to take enough food for a week or two and not just a few days.

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