Maison de l’Entraide

Sainte-Julie, a south-shore Montreal suburb in the Monteregie region within the Marguerite-D’Youville area, is home to Maison de l’Entraide, a community organization marking its 50th anniversary this year after five decades of supporting local families through economic hardship. Rather than operating as a single storefront, the organization runs a small network of connected services out of two addresses on avenue Jules-Choquet: a main office at number 500, suite 100, where staff and volunteers coordinate support and counseling services, and a solidarity grocery store, known locally as an epicerie solidaire, at number 508, local C, offering food at reduced cost to households facing financial strain. Alongside the grocery store, Maison de l’Entraide operates a friperie, a secondhand clothing and goods shop that gives area residents an affordable way to dress their families and furnish their homes while also giving donated items a second life rather than sending them to a landfill. The organization’s offerings extend well beyond retail: it coordinates outings and workshops for the community it serves, organizes Christmas hamper campaigns and other holiday giving drives each winter, and provides direct support and counseling to families navigating economic difficulty, positioning itself as a broad social safety net rather than a single-purpose charity. Each part of the operation keeps its own schedule. The administrative offices are open weekdays from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon and close entirely on weekends, while the solidarity grocery store keeps considerably longer hours, nine in the morning to seven at night on weekdays and ten to five on both Saturday and Sunday, reflecting its role as a working retail operation rather than a purely administrative one. The friperie runs on its own separate schedule again, open Tuesday and Wednesday from noon to five, Thursday and Friday from noon to seven, and weekends from ten to five, while closing entirely on Mondays, a rhythm that lets a small volunteer base staff three distinct services without overlap. Reaching the organization directly, whether to ask about current hours, donate goods, or inquire about assistance, can be done by phone or by email through the address listed on its own website. What distinguishes Maison de l’Entraide from many similarly named community groups is the sheer breadth of its integrated model: a single nonprofit umbrella running a grocery store, a clothing shop, and a full slate of family support programming side by side, funded and staffed largely through donations, volunteers, and community backing rather than commercial revenue, exactly the kind of grassroots infrastructure that a fiftieth anniversary implies has proven itself durable over time. For Sainte-Julie families facing a tight month, a job loss, or simply the ordinary cost pressures of raising children, the organization offers multiple points of entry, whether that means picking up affordable groceries, finding a season of clothing at the friperie, or reaching out to a counselor directly, all under one long-running community roof. In short, Maison de l’Entraide is a five-decade-old Sainte-Julie nonprofit combining a solidarity grocery store, a secondhand clothing shop, and direct family support into one integrated local safety net.