🎉Celebrating the Success of the WINS Glenbrook Grand Opening!🎉

The grand opening of our new Women in Need Society (WINS) location in Glenbrook was a resounding success! This new location is everything we hoped it would be—a vibrant community centre where shopping, donating, volunteering, and supporting each other come together in remarkable ways.

This milestone marks a significant expansion in our mission to assist even more women and families in need. At WINS, our commitment to making a positive impact, particularly for women and families facing poverty and gender inequality, was front and centre at the event. With our Glenbrook location now open, we’re thrilled to offer even more essential programs and services as well as a place to shop, donate, volunteer, and come together as a community.

The success of this event is a testament to the incredible support from our donors, volunteers, shoppers, and employees—people like YOU—who have been instrumental in helping WINS provide essential programs and support to thousands of women and families in need. Thanks to this amazing community, we are excited to help even more women and families as we move ahead.

Did you know that WINS is a Charity Social Enterprise?

You might be wondering: what is a charity social enterprise? A charity social enterprise is a unique type of organization that merges the principles of charity with the practices of business. At its core, a charity social enterprise operates with a mission to address social or environmental issues—or, in WINS' case, both. At WINS, we address gender inequality and poverty alleviation and we promote sustainability. WINS is a little different than a traditional charity that primarily relies on donations and grants. As a charity social enterprise, WINS generates its own revenue through our thrift stores.

When you donate to WINS, whether you donate funds, new or gently used items, or your time as a volunteer, your generosity is directly reinvested back into community support for women and their families. Our donors can feel good knowing their gently used item donations, funds or volunteer hours are making a direct positive impact in the lives of people in need in our community.

What’s more, when you donate funds to WINS, those dollars go further because for every dollar donated, 88 cents of that goes directly into our community programs, which means that more women are receiving the help they need to overcome the challenges presented by poverty and gender inequality to become self-sufficient participants in the local economy. When a woman facing hardship wins, we all win. That's why our tagline is "Together, everyone WINS."

Learn more by reading our yearly impact reports.

Contributing to Calgary's Circular Economy

This is WINS' Donation Centre! These crates of donated items are sorted and separated into what can be sold and what can be recycled.

So, what is a circular economy, and what does it have to do with WINS and our work?

A circular economy is a new way of doing things that helps the environment by using resources more wisely and creating less waste. Unlike the old way, where we take materials, make products, and then throw them away, the circular economy encourages us to keep things in use for as long as possible. At WINS, we encourage the reuse, repurposing and recycling of gently used items through our thrift stores.

This approach is great for the environment because it helps cut down on waste and pollution. By recycling and reusing, we reduce the amount of garbage and save natural resources like water, which is primarily wasted in the production of fast fashion. WINS' contribution to the circular economy means that we divert millions of pounds of items away from landfills every year, and the sale and reuse of those items help support women and their families in their time of need.

We hope you've learned something new after reading this blog post! Now you understand just how much your support matters to WINS, to our community and to the women and families we serve.

We’re grateful for the overwhelming response and support we received from everyone who attended the Glenbrook Grand Opening Ceremony, and we look forward to continuing this journey together.

Thank you for being a part of our celebration and your ongoing commitment to helping WINS reach thousands of women and families in need in Calgary.

Here’s to many more milestones and to growing our positive impact in our community!

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