Where the edited items go: Free Store Chilliwack
Free Store Chilliwack is one of the few places that says yes to what most donation centres turn away, and it is part of our weekly donation drop-off. Almost every project sends bags of unwanted items out of a client’s home, and most of them are perfectly usable. Clothing and household goods usually find a new home without trouble, but the half-bag of rice, the open box of crackers, and the shampoo used once are harder to keep out of the landfill. Most donation centres cannot take items like these, so they end up in the garbage, which has always bothered us.
Who they are
Raylene Mumford founded the store, which opened its doors in August 2021 as a volunteer-run non-profit. It provides fresh food, clothing, hygiene products, and houseware free of charge, and it works on a zero-barrier approach so that what people need is as easy to reach as it can be. According to Mumford, the team has served an estimated 4,600 Chilliwack families with food hampers (Chilliwack Progress, November 2025). In 2022, the store was serving about 300 families every Sunday, and 3,000 lbs. of food was gone within three hours.
The work reaches past food. The store runs programming that supports children’s literacy and a gardening program that teaches community members to grow, can, and repurpose their own food. Its thrift shop is one of the only non-profit thrift stores in the city, with all profits going toward food and other Free Store expenses. In 2024, the team received the Betty Urquhart Award for giving Chilliwack residents zero-barrier access to food and everyday essentials, and the store now has a new downtown home at 9248 Main St.
What Free Store Chilliwack takes that others cannot
Food insecurity in Chilliwack is driven by rising living costs, high housing burdens, and an increasing reliance on local emergency support systems. Along with the increasing food costs comes this increased food insecurity in the community. This is why the store accepts items that most donation centres turn away: pantry goods past their best before date, opened food, and opened toiletries.
A best before date marks peak freshness, not safety, so a sealed box of pasta from last spring still has use left in it, and so does a half-used bottle of shampoo. These are the things a household may stop reaching for. They can now reach a family that needs them instead of going to landfill.
The excess we take out of clients homes is how we frame the new systems we build for them. It gives perspective on how we think about every pantry and bathroom we edit. The new systems we create must account for reasonable backstock, every day use items, and also includes where things go if they are no longer serving the household.
How Lumea Living shows up
Each week, donations from our projects are sorted by our team and delivered ready for the shelves. We also spend time volunteering in the shop, organizing and tidying the thrift store areas so donated items are easy to find and the space works for the people shopping it.
Partnering with local charites is not only important to us at Lumea, but often is a driving force for our clients to let go of items when they know it’s going to a family in need. Clients do not have to think about the logistics of any of it, they just decide what stays, and we take care of where the rest goes. The sorting starts on site, as our Vancouver home organizing team works through each space, and the same routine applies during move management, when more leaves the house than at any other time.
Monday’s pantry project, someone’s kitchen restock by the weekend
An item that leaves a client’s pantry on Monday can be in someone else’s kitchen by the weekend. That is the part we like best about this routine. Knowing that perfectly good food and toiletries are kept out of the landfill and used by a family in need.
If you are in the Fraser Valley, you can support Free Store Chilliwack with food donations and gently used items. You will find them on Facebook as Free Store Chilliwack and Social Program Development Society, or on their website.
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Lumea Living, formerly NEAT Method Toronto and NEAT Method Vancouver, provides luxury home organization and move management across Vancouver and Toronto.
