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Winnipeg, Man.
Former MCC thrift store coordinator has strong connection with people, MCC


Martha Klassen was the MCC thrift store coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba until this March, but her connection with MCC goes back many years.

In 1960 (the first year she and her husband John were married), they served with MCC for one year at a school for delinquent boys in Ohio.

Martha Klassen: MCC’s Canadian thrift store coordinator retires. MCC News photos prepared by Bruce Hildebrand.

Later, they farmed in Manitoba’s Interlake region for 25 years. While raising five children, Klassen regularly sewed blankets and layettes for MCC.

She would gather together neighbours and friends (many had no connection to MCC or Mennonites) to make blankets, pulling apart old clothes and sewing them together into new bed coverings.

Klassen said she often aimed to sew 100 refugee blankets a year, either by herself or with a group, though she didn’t always meet her goal. “I thought refugee blankets were important because (they) bring such comfort to people,” she said. “It seems the very least we can do. So I have strongly promoted that wherever I go.”

After leaving farming in 1986 and moving to Winnipeg, Klassen joined the MCC Manitoba Board, representing Women for MCC for four years in the early 1990s. She and John also spent four months in 1994 at the Ten Thousand Villages warehouse in Akron, Pa. In 1995, she was asked to coordinate the thrift stores in Manitoba on a part-time volunteer basis. During her tenure, she served as a resource person for the thrift stores, hosted manager meetings, attended and often spoke at store meetings and events in various communities and produced “Shop Talk”, a quarterly publication filled with news on the various stores and MCC activities.

Thrift stores raise a lot of money for MCC but they also provide a strong connection between the organization and its constituents, says Martha Klassen, centre. She helped cut the ribbon at the official opening of a new thrift store on Selkirk Avenue in Winnipeg recently.

“It has become a tool to connect thrift stores with each other as well as connect MCC projects and people with the thrift store volunteers who are raising money for them,” she said.

As soon as she assumed the MCC position, Klassen realized she needed to connect with the thrift store coordinators from other provinces. So MCC Canada provided some funding to help put on an annual national meeting.

“I think the most rewarding thing for me has been getting to know so many volunteers – just to realize how many people dedicate so much time to the stores,” she said. “These are definitely the doers – the people who make things happen.”

Approximately 2500 people volunteer their time at the 17 thrift stores in Manitoba that raise $1.5 million annually for MCC.

 – MCC Manitoba release

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Last modified April 26, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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