Every purchase made at Twice Over, a thrift store at 214 Manitoba Avenue in Selkirk, does double duty: it funds a used-goods bargain for the shopper and helps sustain Nova House, the women’s shelter organization that operates the store. Nova House provides shelter, safety planning, and support services for women and families fleeing abusive situations, and Twice Over exists as one of the ways the organization funds that work without relying solely on grants or fundraising drives. Revenue from the shop’s daily sales flows directly back into Nova House’s programming, making a routine visit to browse the racks a small but concrete way of supporting local domestic violence services.
The store carries a broad mix typical of a well-run community thrift shop: clothing for men, women, and children, housewares, books, and small kitchen appliances, along with whatever else the community donates that can be resold to fund the shelter’s work. Because the inventory depends entirely on donations from Selkirk and the surrounding area, the selection shifts constantly, and regular shoppers often stop in more than once a week to see what has newly arrived. The store asks that donors call ahead before dropping items off, since donations are not accepted when the shop is closed, a policy that keeps the intake process manageable for the volunteers and staff who sort and price everything that comes through the door.
Twice Over is open Monday through Friday from 9 in the morning until 5 in the evening, with shorter Saturday hours from 10 until 4, and it stays closed on Sundays and statutory holidays, giving both weekday and weekend shoppers a reliable window to visit. That schedule, combined with the store’s location on Selkirk’s main commercial strip, makes it an easy stop for locals running other errands downtown, and the shop has become something of a fixture for residents looking for affordable secondhand goods with a clear sense of where their money is going.
What separates Twice Over from an ordinary thrift store is the direct, transparent line between a purchase and its purpose. Families served by Nova House are able to access items from the store at no cost as they work to rebuild their lives after leaving unsafe situations, which means every paying customer is effectively subsidizing that access for someone in crisis. It is a model that treats the thrift store not as a side project but as core infrastructure for the shelter’s mission, turning ordinary secondhand shopping into a form of quiet, ongoing community support. For a town the size of Selkirk, having a shelter-run store embedded in the everyday retail landscape also helps normalize conversations about domestic violence and the resources available to those experiencing it, since the connection between the shop and the shelter is not hidden but built into how the store presents itself.
Anyone in Selkirk or the surrounding Interlake region looking for affordable clothing, housewares, or small appliances, or looking for a meaningful place to donate gently used items, will find that Twice Over offers exactly that while directly funding shelter and support services for women and families fleeing abuse, making it a rare example of a thrift store where the shopping and the mission are genuinely inseparable.
