Tucked inside the parish hall of St. Lawrence Anglican Church at 1824A Portugal Cove Road, the St. Lawrence Thrift Store has become a Saturday-morning ritual for shoppers across Portugal Cove-St. Philips and the wider northeast Avalon. Every Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., volunteers open the church hall doors and turn the space into a browsable secondhand shop stocked with clothing for men, women, and children, CDs and DVDs, house decor, kitchenware, glassware, footwear, art and prints, seasonal decorations, vintage finds, books, and jewelry. Because inventory turns over from week to week depending entirely on what neighbours drop off, no two visits look the same, and regulars know that the best pieces tend to move fast.
The store operates as an outreach ministry of the church rather than a commercial venture. Every dollar taken in over the counter goes back into supporting the parish itself and its community outreach initiatives, meaning a five-dollar sweater or a two-dollar stack of paperbacks contributes directly to programs that serve Portugal Cove-St. Philips residents. Donations are accepted separately from shopping hours, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings between 6:30 and 8 p.m., which gives the volunteer team time to sort, price, and shelve items before the weekend rush. Reverend Bob Earle, who oversees the ministry alongside a small crew of parish volunteers, has helped build an operation that thrives on community fellowship as much as on bargains, and shoppers who have stopped in describe the atmosphere as feeling more like a neighbourhood gathering than a typical retail transaction, with familiar faces behind the counter and conversation as much a draw as the merchandise.
The store landed in an unexpected spotlight in the spring of 2025 when a donated item left the volunteer team stumped. A rounded, football-shaped gadget that folded onto itself and unfolded into a hand-sized scoop showed up among the usual donations, and nobody working the counter could identify what it was for. Reverend Earle filmed a short video of the mystery object and posted it to the store’s Facebook page asking for help, never expecting much of a response. Instead the clip took off, racking up more than a million views, a figure wildly out of proportion to anything a small church thrift shop usually generates online. The answer eventually came from an unlikely source: listeners of a St. John’s radio morning show recognized the tool as a bar-style ice scoop, the kind used behind a counter to portion ice into glasses, and phoned in to solve the puzzle live on air. Reverend Earle later admitted he was caught off guard by how far a single donated item could travel once the internet got hold of it, noting that once someone finally explains what a strange object is for, the answer always seems obvious in hindsight, a small reminder that even a modest volunteer-run shop can turn up a genuine curiosity now and then.
That moment of viral attention aside, the appeal of the St. Lawrence Thrift Store remains rooted in the ordinary: affordable clothing, household basics, and the occasional genuine treasure, sold by volunteers who know many of their customers by name. Anyone furnishing a first apartment, refreshing a wardrobe on a budget, or simply looking for a Saturday outing with a purpose will find a rotating selection worth checking on a regular basis, and can reach the store directly at 709-740-3995 to ask about current stock or donation drop-off. In short, the St. Lawrence Thrift Store is a volunteer-run church shop in Portugal Cove-St. Philips that turns Saturday secondhand shopping into direct support for parish life and community outreach work.
