New To You Thrift and Christian Benefit Shop has operated on Southworth Street North in Welland since August 27, 1974, making it one of the longest running secondhand retailers in Niagara Region and, by its own account, the first Mennonite Central Committee associate store established in Ontario. The shop began under the name Christian Benefit Shop, and while New To You is now the storefront’s public identity, the original name lives on in the business’s registered charitable structure, Christian Benefit Shop Inc, under charity number 123782435RR0001. The store resells quality secondhand clothing and general household donations from the Welland community at reasonable prices, with proceeds directed through MCC’s relief network to support people in need both locally and in more than 60 countries where MCC operates internationally.
A decade after opening, growing demand led the organization to open a second location, Port Thrift, at 12 Charlotte Street in Port Colborne in 1984, extending the same donation funded model to a neighbouring Niagara community. The two stores operate as sister locations under the same Christian ministry mission, with the Welland store reachable at 905-735-4010 and the Port Colborne location at 905-835-8532. In August 2026 the Welland store marked fifty years of continuous operation with an anniversary event, a milestone that few secondhand retailers in the region can claim and one that reflects five decades of steady community support and volunteer commitment.
The shop describes its guiding principle as following Christ’s example in reaching out to all people in the community, especially those in need, and that mission shapes both how donations are accepted and how the store recruits and welcomes volunteers, who form the backbone of daily operations at both the Welland and Port Colborne locations. Because the shop’s entire inventory comes from community donations, stock turns over constantly, giving shoppers in Welland’s downtown core a reason to check back often for clothing basics, seasonal items, and household goods priced to move rather than sit on a shelf.
New To You is not connected to Salvation Army, Goodwill, Savers, or Value Village. It is an independent, MCC affiliated Christian charity thrift operation rooted specifically in Niagara Region, and its long institutional memory, five decades under one mission on the same Welland street, sets it apart from more transient secondhand retailers that come and go in the same commercial strips. Shoppers looking for affordable clothing and household goods in Welland, and donors looking for a place to direct used items toward both local relief and MCC’s global relief work, have relied on this single storefront and its Port Colborne sister store for two generations now. New To You Thrift and Christian Benefit Shop is a Welland, Ontario secondhand store, operating continuously since 1974 as Ontario’s first Mennonite Central Committee associate thrift shop, with proceeds funding local and international relief work.
