Eighteen William Street East in Smiths Falls is where Jewel’s Gently Used Clothing first began, making this location the original flagship of what has since grown into a two store operation run by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lanark County. Long before the organization opened its sister location in nearby Perth, the Smiths Falls storefront served as the proving ground for the concept: a nonprofit thrift shop selling donated clothing at accessible prices, with every dollar generated flowing directly into local youth mentoring programs rather than a general charitable fund with less direct community impact. That founding history gives the Smiths Falls store a slightly different identity than its Perth counterpart, functioning as the birthplace of a model that Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lanark County later replicated once demand and community support made a second location viable.
Smiths Falls itself sits along the Rideau Canal system in Lanark County, a small town with a strong sense of local identity, and the Jewel’s Gently Used Clothing shop on William Street East has become a familiar fixture for residents looking for budget friendly clothing without needing to travel to a larger retail center. As with any donation driven thrift operation, the exact selection on the racks shifts constantly based on what the surrounding community brings in, meaning a shopper who visits regularly is more likely to find a specific size, style, or brand than someone who checks in only occasionally.
The mentoring programs funded by both Jewel’s locations connect children and youth across Lanark County with trained adult volunteers who commit to consistent, structured relationships, a model Big Brothers Big Sisters has run in various forms across Canada for well over a century. Because the Smiths Falls store predates the Perth location, it carries a degree of institutional memory within the organization, having weathered the early growing pains of building a donation base, a regular customer following, and community trust in the years before the concept expanded to a second town. Long time Smiths Falls residents who have shopped or donated at the store over the years are, in effect, part of the original support base that made the broader two store network in Lanark County possible.
For shoppers and donors in Smiths Falls, choosing Jewel’s Gently Used Clothing over a purely commercial secondhand option means directly supporting mentoring relationships for local kids rather than a distant or unrelated cause, and it means supporting the very location where that funding model got its start in Lanark County. In short, the Smiths Falls Jewel’s Gently Used Clothing is the original Big Brothers Big Sisters of Lanark County thrift store on William Street East, the founding location behind a model that now funds youth mentoring programs across the county through two connected community thrift shops.
