The Good Neighbour Store on Main Street is getting a face lift. The stucco exterior of the charity thrift store was stressed and needed replacing. That’s exactly what the directors have chosen to do. 

“It needed the work badly,” said Gwen Saret, past-president of the Good Neighbour Store. “We decided last year that we were going to take the stucco off and get it refinished. Janice Ruedig volunteered to lead the way and did all the work with the contractors. She worked all winter on it.”

A portion of the money had been set aside for the project in last year’s budget. The remainder comes from this year’s budget, Saret said. The work was necessary given that the exterior had been deteriorating and the volunteer staff had detected water leaks around the windows and in other places. The stucco removal allows for those water issues to be fixed up. 

Metal cladding is going up to replace the siding once the building is sealed. Saret says the south side of the building is done and they’re pleased with the new look. The building was previously owned by the city and rented to the group for its use. A number of years ago, under the direction of then-president Maureen Doetzel, the organization bought the building.

“We’ve invested quite a bit of money in the building over the last 10 years or so,” says Saret. “This was a huge project that would have to be addressed sooner rather than later, and so we’ve done that.”

The Good Neighbour Store has been a fixture in the south downtown area for years, and it’s become a critical donor of funds to many local charities. Each year donations rank in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and countless volunteer hours go into managing the massive inventory of donations, so appreciated by area residents. The exterior renovation means the building will be in place for a long time.