- January 30, 2025
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Last fall, the Halifax Humane Society announced a change in business model for its thrift store: it would no longer focus on selling clothing.
The decision came after Halifax Humane Society hired its new CEO, Sean Hawkins, in June 2024. Under his leadership, and with the mission to maximize financial impact, HHS opted to shift its focus on higher-value items such as furniture, pet supplies and household goods.
"When clothing is donated, significant staff time and effort are involved: receiving the items, sorting for resale, storing inventory, moving items to the sales floor, and ultimately selling them," a statement from HHS reads. "It costs us approximately $2 in staff time to handle a single piece of clothing, which we typically sell for only $2. In contrast, we can invest the same amount of time to process larger items, like chairs and tables, which can be sold for $50 to $100. This approach makes better financial sense for us."
On an average weekend donation day, the thrift store would receive over 30 bags of clothing, said Suzanne Zappala, thrift manager for Halifax Humane Society. During a holiday weekend or times of the year when people are cleaning out their closets, the number of bags often rose to over 100.
"We just don't have the manpower in our store," Zappala said. "We run on a really lean staff with five people, and that's for being open seven days a week."
The rise of fast fashion trends combined with the store's more visible location at 385 S. Yonge St. — which opened in 2022 — are all contributing factors for the rising amount of bulk clothing donations the store received. Zappala said they were then faced with an overcrowded storage area, creating a safety issue for volunteers and staff until the clothing was either sorted for the store, or donated forward to another thrift store.
The changes started rolling out around July of last year, but this month, reports of the thrift store throwing items out circulated on social media.
Zappala said the only items that are thrown out are ones that can't be sold such as broken or filthy appliances, books riddled with silverfish and empty DVD cases — every four to five days, a store employee goes through these because DVDs are frequently stolen.
"It really frustrates me," Zappala said of the social media claims, "because we do try to put out as much good stuff as we can, but there's always going to be things that we have to discard, like every thrift store."
When she reads comments on social media that they will stop donating or frequenting the store, that ultimately means one less donation to help animals, Zappala said. This year, the thrift store is aiming to raise $505,000 for HHS.
"I would ask the community, before you pass judgment on us, come see our operation," she said. "I will welcome anybody to look at what we're passing on, as far as what we can put on the floor to sell and what we are throwing away."
Clothing isn't thrown away; Zappala said it's redonated through either a liquidation service, or sent to other area thrift stores in need of donations. The store still has some clothes out today, which is part of the slow roll out for the updated business model.
Volunteers, she added, are always needed.
"it's really in the end, for the animals, and I just don't want to see such negativity towards an organization that does so well for the community," Zappala said. "We have a really, really dedicated staff of people at our shelter. It hurts morale sometimes when we read some of the things that are said about the society in general or even individuals."
