Grand opening of ReStore

Photo: Contributed

It’s official. ReStore has moved into the city.

Operated by Habitat for Humanity, the non-profit home improvement and donation centre held its grand opening Saturday, 18 months after opening a West Kelowna store on Ross Road.

Operations manager Neil Smith says it was important for the store to move into Kelowna, because people were finding the commute over the bridge to the Ross Road location too long.

“It just puts us in the (centre) of the shopping district,” says Smith, of the new Enterprise Way location. “It also puts us closer to manufacturing, which are the donators for the ReStore."

You can find just about anything there, he says, from home decor, to appliances, to renovation supplies.

“We don’t do clothing; we don’t do bedding; nothing like that. We have a number of non-profits in the valley who are doing an awesome job with that, but it’s not our niche. We are all about the big items.”

Not everything inside the store is second hand, either. About 50 per cent of the products are brand new merchandise, donated by businesses throughout the valley.

Both the Kelowna and West Kelowna stores accept donations, Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“We only take items that are good re-sellable items. They have to be good, clean. It can’t be the dog’s bed for the last two years. We are very picky about what we re-sell to the public because it is going into someone else’s home, so it has to be perfect,” explains Smith.