Vancouver secondhand shop marks 20 years of supporting women experiencing violence

© Melody Jacobson
My Sister’s Closet opened in 2001

A Vancouver clothing shop devoted to encouraging women of all ages who have skilled violence marks its 20 yr anniversary amid a pandemic-fuelled increase in domestic violence.

My Sister’s Closet is a social organization of Battered Women’s Help Providers (BWSS), a Vancouver-based group that offers products and services and group training similar to violence in opposition to women. 

It states all of its earnings goes toward funding BWSS programs and companies. 

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BWSS executive director Angela Marie MacDougall stated the firm has observed a bigger uptake of its services since the start of the pandemic. 

“Our numbers are most absolutely bigger from last year and earlier a long time … we’ve experienced definitely loads of girls join with us by means of the store that are working with violence, both through contacting the shop by itself or dropping in.” 

The retail outlet sells new and secondhand clothing and domestically produced creations by girls. Both equally the downtown and the East Vancouver shops settle for donations from the public. 

MacDougall stated that as a social business the purpose of the store is to concentrate on individuals above revenue. 

“It allows persons to be in a position to interface with the concern in a way that is a lot additional cozy,” said MacDougall. 

A different key tenet of the retail store is to champion sustainability by encouraging the reuse of apparel. 

“We are serving to sluggish the move of fabric to the landfill which issues due to the fact the fashion market is the 2nd most important oil and gas polluter,” claimed MacDougall. 

A thing for most people

Shannon Salter has been a common purchaser at the store for in excess of a ten years. Salter explained when she 1st started doing the job as a law firm whilst running student personal loan debt, she arrived to My Sister’s Closet for affordable professional apparel. 

“There’s something for every just one. There is clothing for every single entire body and each individual selling price level … It is this sort of a superb, welcoming ecosystem for absolutely everyone,” mentioned Salter.

Salter also shops at My Sister’s Closet to guidance the organization’s mission, in addition to appreciating their garments. 

“I feel they do a large total of very good for a quite constrained sum of funding … primarily in the course of the pandemic when the require for their solutions has actually skyrocketed.” 

Thursday, Nov. 25, marks the start of an international 16-times-of-activism-in opposition to-gender-violence marketing campaign. The marketing campaign, commenced by the Centre for Women’s World Management, attempts to bring consciousness to and stop violence against gals and women.