St David’s Opp Shop is preparing to celebrate 45 years of supporting the Edgecumbe community and is hoping to reconnect with former volunteers for the occasion.

A high morning tea for past and present volunteers will be held at Manna Café, Riverslea Mall, on Saturday, October 3, from 10am to noon.

Convener Roselynn Waldman said organisers were keen to hear from former volunteers who may not yet know about the celebration.

The shop began in 1981, when women from St David’s Presbyterian Church decided to open an opp shop to raise money for work needed at the church.

Founding volunteer Betty Currie said the shop was established to raise money for projects, including new curtains and carpeting.

What started as a small operation quickly grew, with some founding members still involved with the shop today.

An old church newsletter from 1983 recorded that about 100 women had offered their services to the shop, with around 20 needed each week and four working each day. Husbands were also called on to help with the heavier work.

Currie said the shop originally operated at the site where the Edgecumbe laundromat is now and was open from 10am to 4pm.

After the earthquake, the building required repairs, prompting a move into the premises next door, now occupied by the barber.

The opp shop later moved to premises at Riverslea Mall, now occupied by Temple Gym, before moving to its current location in 2017, shortly before the Edgecumbe floods.

Waldman said it was closed for about two months following the floods, although the premises were not flooded.

Some of the shop’s records and items for sale, which had been stored at a volunteer’s home, were lost in the floods.

The only other extended closure was during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the shop closed for a couple of months and its landlord provided a significantly reduced rent.

Today, around 30 volunteers help keep the shop running, with husbands and partners helping with heavy lifting and small maintenance jobs.

The shop also occasionally provides opportunities for people from outside its regular volunteer team. Waldman said a social work student was currently spending four weeks at the shop as part of her degree, learning about how a small community shop operates.

Waldman has volunteered at the shop for about 11 years and has been its convener for the past three years.

While the shop began as a way of raising money for St David’s, its reach has expanded considerably, with thousands of dollars donated to community organisations and causes each year. This financial year, the shop donated more than $28,000 to community organisations and $12,000 to St David’s Church.

Recipients include local schools, fire brigades, playcentres, hospices, Riding for the Disabled, Women’s Refuge, Christian-based organisations and other local community organisations.

The shop has also supported causes further afield, including sending aid to Vanuatu following an earthquake.

Keeping prices affordable is important to the volunteers, with the shop able to keep costs down because it is entirely volunteer run. All the shop sales are from donated goods which are generously given by people from the area and beyond.

Higher-value donated items are sometimes sold through Trade Me or Marketplace to raise more money.

Over the years, it has become more than somewhere to pick up second-hand goods.

“There are people who come in here and start talking to each other, and they haven’t seen each other for years and years,” Waldman said.

“It’s quite a hub.”

For the volunteers, the shop provides that same social connection.

Waldman said what kept her coming back was “catching up with people and just knowing that we’re doing good, helping our community, and the church community as well”.

Currie said reaching 45 years was something the women who established the shop could never have imagined.

“The ladies that started it off, they would be amazed with what has happened.

“I often think that we just couldn’t believe that it’d take off.”

St David’s Opp Shop is open from 10.30am to 2.30pm on weekdays and from 10am to noon on Saturdays.

Past volunteers can contact Wendy Leach on 027 645 9445 or Waldman on 07 322 2922.