Aunt Leahs Place

At Aunt Leah’s Urban Thrift, there’s no such thing as buyer’s remorse or shopper’s guilt. “Everything that you spend goes to a good place,” says store manager Ali Andeku. The centrally located Mount Pleasant store is a social enterprise that supports Aunt Leah's Place, a charitable organization that runs programs to prevent children in government care from becoming homeless, and to help mothers in need keep custody of their children.

The East Broadway thrift shop opened in 2011 with an ambitious program of accepting donations from across Metro Vancouver, so that customers could browse a steadily changing inventory of furniture, clothing, books and housewares. Unlike big box stores, the merchandise at Urban Thrift is carefully curated to fit the small space in the historic Lee Building.