Walk along the main street in Swift Current, Sask., and you’ll be greeted by sparkling and enticing window displays—courtesy of the Salvation Army thrift store.

One week, NHL hockey jerseys in pristine condition take centre stage. Another week, sumptuous grad gowns adorn the front windows. A Salvation Army exhibit spotlights the living history of the church. And still other times feature the Beatles or Star Wars.

Year-Round Deals

The windows are the masterpieces of manager Lori Reimer, who has been creating these displays since she started working at the thrift store in 2009.“I’ve been doing the windows ever since then,” she smiles. “I trained as a florist, so I’ve brought a little bit of that sensibility into the displays. It’s been fun!”The windows exhibit the thrift store’s silent auction items. Lori changes the displays every six weeks or so and always has at least six to eight ideas ahead in her mind.“If you saw my office, there’s bunches and bits of things I’ve accumulated,” she says. “Eventually there’s a tipping point where I have enough material for an auction.

“Right now, for some reason, I have a collection of sailboat paintings, so soon they will all be on display.”

Lori’s windows are keyed to seasonal events such as holidays and graduations, and special local events that include Swift Current’s annual SaskPower Windscape Kite Festival and Frontier Days festivals.

Enter and Ask

Though the thrift store is situated on the main street, without the beckoning displays, people might pass the thrift store by. The windows fix that.

“We see people stop in their tracks when they see the display windows, turn around and come in,” says Lori. “If you can get them to walk through the doors, that’s a win. And so I don’t put the auction information in the window. I want people to come in and ask.”For every display, there seems to be a story that touches Lori’s heart. For example, Lori once displayed a brand of Pyrex kitchenware called Chelsea.

“A woman from Winnipeg contacted me,” Lori relates. “I don’t know how she found out about it, but she did.”

It turns out she had a daughter named Chelsea who had passed away, so the mother was always searching for these pieces of Pyrex. 

“I normally don’t ship anything,” Lori says. “But for her, I did.”

Another time a woman placed a $200 winning bid on an antique dresser but when Lori contacted her to tell her she had won, she changed her mind. No one is ever obligated to follow through on a bid but the woman insisted on making it a donation.

It turns out that The Salvation Army held a special place in her heart. When her father served in the Second World War, he was in the hospital waiting to return home but had no money for coffee. Only The Salvation Army helped him. 

“She donated the money in memory of her father,” Lori says.Another display that stands out in Lori’s memory was a fishing-themed window that included a “crazy” half-metre-long ceramic dog. A man who had never visited the store before saw the ceramic dog and immediately walked inside because it reminded him of a beloved pet he had lost just months before.

“I was shown a photo of the pet. It was as if the dog had sat for the sculpture,” she says. “What are the odds?”

A Theology of Thrifting

Lori may sell purses at auction for upwards of $150 or antique furniture for $200 but she stresses that all the funds raised go right back into the community. And she makes a point of keeping basic necessities at very low prices so that those who need them can afford them.

“As well, the thrift store is an easy threshold to cross,” explains Lori. “It’s a soft introduction to the services The Salvation Army has to offer, and there’s something in that understated approach.”

For Lori, though, the thrift store serves a deeper purpose.

“It’s the idea that you take something that’s essentially been thrown away or discarded and you make something new and beautiful out of it,” she believes. “It speaks to my theology. It speaks to how I see God. I’m not sure if people who walk by or into our thrift store think about that—but I do.”

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