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A woman searches through a pile of clothes during the North End Family Centre’s “Great Clothing Giveaway” on March 2. The centre has had to put its popular clothing exchange program on hiatus due to lack of volunteers. (PHOTO BY DARREN RIDGLEY)

The North End Family Centre has been left with little recourse but to put a popular program on hold due to lack of volunteers to run it.

The centre, located at 1322 Main St., held a "Great Clothing Giveaway" at St. John’s Anglican Cathedral on March 2 to clear out its stockpile of pre-owned clothes. Visitors to the church during the afternoon giveaway were encouraged to take away as much as they could carry.

The centre held the giveaway in part because its clothing exchange, one of its first and most popular programs, has had to be put on hold for a while.

"For a long time it was run by community volunteers and they did a fantastic job," said centre executive director Kyle Mason.

"But just due to changes in life, employment and other things, they had to step away. We weren’t able to keep the program running at the level we expect of ourselves."

And so they chose to put the program on hiatus for the immediate future, as those left to run the program were "getting overrun."

"The program wasn’t serving people as well as it could. We figure that if a program can’t be run well, we should at least put it on pause," Mason said, adding it would be "disrespectful to the people we serve and the people who support us" to run the program in a diminished fashion.
He did say the centre hopes to bring the program back.

"We’ll bring it back when we have appropriate space and volunteers," he said.