COLUMN: Carillon Flashback October 26, 2006 – Volunteer retires after 34 years at Thrift Store

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This article was published 01/01/2024 (443 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After volunteering at the Steinbach MCC Thrift Store for 34 years, Martin Friesen is retiring, saying he will miss being part of the hustle and bustle of the busy place.

“I enjoyed meeting the people that came in,” says the 82-year-old Friesen, who has been clerking for the last decade.

Over the years, there’s hardly a job he hasn’t been involved in, from building shelves, to fixing and arranging things, to lining up volunteers to take their turns at the till.

Friesen goes right back to the beginnings of the Mennonite Central Committee’s Thrift Store movement in Canada. The first store was opened in Altona in April of 1972, and the Steinbach store wasn’t far behind. In fact, it was Friesen’s wife, Agatha, who took the leadership in opening a small store in Steinbach.

It was a very small place, and Friesen and his wife worked together to get the shop established after the grand opening in the spring of 1972.

Friesen notes the store kept growing and every time it moved to a new place, it soon required more space. Finally, it was decided by the board that a new building should be constructed on Main Street, with plenty of warehouse space in addition to the retail area.

A few years ago, in another growth spurt, the thrift store took over the space formerly occupied by Ten Thousand Villages, which moved to a separate location on Main Street.

Friesen has been a part of every move, lending a hand where needed. In the late 1980s, he took formal retirement from his job as a builder. He claims volunteering filled a hole in his life, which was especially true after his wife died in 1999.

“It gave me something to do.”

Friesen notes his health was a factor in deciding to give up volunteering on a regular basis, but he hopes to be available to help out occasionally, when needed.

– with files from Doris Penner