Long before a customer ever picks up a gently used coat or a piece of furniture at 16 University Avenue, the money behind that price tag has already been set to work. The Hospice Shoppe in Miramichi, New Brunswick, is the primary retail arm of Hospice Miramichi Inc., a not for profit charity founded in 2011 to support people facing end of life care and grief in the Miramichi region. Reachable at 506-773-3811, the shop sits in the city’s historic Chatham business district and sells a broad mix of donated resale goods, including clothing, furnishings, and housewares, with every sale helping cover the real cost of hospice care in the community.
That mission has grown considerably since the shop first opened. In 2024, Hospice Miramichi opened Vondy House, a 24 hour residential facility offering palliative and respite care to residents of the Miramichi area. Care at Vondy House is provided free of charge, with families responsible only for prescription co-payments, and the home is staffed by licensed nurses who specialize in palliative care and who work alongside New Brunswick’s Extra-Mural Program. Both private physicians and the facility’s own palliative care team can attend to patients there. None of that would be possible without steady fundraising, and The Hospice Shoppe is one of the organization’s most visible and dependable sources of that support, turning donated household items into real dollars for nursing staff, comfort care, and family support services.
Shoppers can browse The Hospice Shoppe Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with donations accepted on a more limited schedule, Tuesday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., which helps staff and volunteers manage intake and keep the sales floor organized. The historic Chatham district setting gives the shop a walkable, small town retail feel, distinct from the strip mall thrift stores found in larger cities, and it draws a loyal base of regular shoppers who treat a visit almost like treasure hunting, since inventory turns over with whatever the Miramichi community has recently donated.
Hospice Miramichi did not stop at one location. The organization also operates Vondy’s Nearly New Boutique at 133 Newcastle Boulevard, a second resale storefront selling gently used merchandise on a slightly longer schedule, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Having two related but separate shops lets the charity reach shoppers on both sides of the Miramichi River while multiplying the fundraising base that keeps Vondy House and its free palliative care running. Together, the two stores form a retail network that is unusual for a charity of this size, and it reflects how central resale fundraising has become to the organization’s ability to deliver no cost end of life care locally rather than relying solely on grants or one time donations.
For anyone in the Miramichi area looking for affordable clothing, furniture, or housewares while directly supporting local palliative and hospice care, The Hospice Shoppe offers a simple answer: shopping here helps fund free, round the clock hospice care at Vondy House for families across the Miramichi region.
