Inside a small commercial strip at 21 Centre-Commercial Street in the St-Roxboro sector of Montreal, a thrift store called Friperie Deuxieme Vie turns everyday clothing and household castoffs into direct support for a local food bank. Run under FDOI, the Fonds d’aide de l’Ouest-de-l’Ile, the shop sorts every donation it receives by type and size before it hits the racks, so shoppers browsing coats, kids clothes, or kitchenware are working through inventory thats already been organized rather than a jumbled bin. The store describes itself as a store for everyone, a phrase that reflects its actual operating model: proceeds from sales go straight back into funding the food banks work in the West Island area, rather than to a private owner or a distant corporate parent.
The shop keeps a schedule built around volunteer availability rather than a rigid corporate calendar, generally open Monday through Wednesday from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, Thursday and Friday from 9 until 5, and Saturday from 10 until 4, with Sundays closed. Because the store runs on volunteer staffing, hours can shift somewhat, so a quick call ahead to 514-683-0456 is a reasonable step before making a special trip. What shoppers find inside covers clothing for a range of ages alongside small household items, everything from dishware to décor pieces that a previous owner no longer needed but that still have plenty of use left.
FDOI itself operates well beyond this single storefront. The organization runs a broader set of community programs in Montreals West Island, including a food bank, collective kitchen programming, and community garden initiatives, all aimed at strengthening local food security and self-sufficiency. The thrift shop functions as one funding engine among several, converting donated goods into revenue that flows back into those programs, while simultaneously giving West Island residents an affordable place to shop for clothing and basic household goods. The organization has also produced its own styling materials, branded REND ZINE, geared toward getting creative, budget-friendly inspiration out of secondhand finds rather than treating resale clothing as a last resort.
St-Roxboro sits in the Pierrefonds-Roxboro borough at the western edge of Montreal Island, a largely residential area where a community-funded thrift shop serves a genuinely practical purpose for budget-conscious families, students, and anyone looking to reduce how much still-usable clothing and housewares end up in a landfill. Volunteers sorting and classifying every donated item by type and size before it reaches the sales floor is a small operational detail, but it is the kind of consistency that keeps a community thrift shop functioning smoothly on donated labor and give-and-take generosity from its neighborhood.
Anyone shopping at Friperie Deuxieme Vie in St-Roxboro is not just finding a deal on secondhand clothing or a stack of household goods. They are directly funding food bank services and community food programs for Montreals West Island, making every purchase part of a larger, locally rooted effort to fight food insecurity through reuse.
