Cochrane Home Treasures celebrates important milestone

Cochrane Home Treasures is a thrift store that has operated for 25 years. All its inventory is donated, and proceeds from sales go to help others.

A Cochrane thrift store that uses its profits to help local charities is celebrating a big milestone.

Officials with Cochrane Home Treasures say over the past five years, they’ve raised $1 million in sales – money that’s gone to helping more than 40 organizations.

“Considering that so many of our items are $2, $5 and $3, it’s not a lot of huge ticket items, and we’re just so reliant on the Cochrane community to keep on coming through the back door with donations -- then they wander around the front and buy something to replace what they just gave us,” said Dawn Thome, Treasures for Your Home Society chair.

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Thome says the million-dollar milestone is a win for the community.

Home Treasures got its start 25 years ago and has seen constant growth through the years with the amount of volume it moves in the store and the number of local charities it helps.

“I think over the last couple of years, most municipalities have seen the need really rising. People are having a hard time meeting the basics,” she said. “We accept applications from not-for-profit groups, schools, Boy Scouts, you name it, and we turn around and we review their applications and provide them with funding.”

In 2025, the organization set an annual record by selling $398,760 in donated goods.

Thome says that allowed Home Treasures to initiate a ‘gifting’ program, where charities could apply for funding of specific projects.

“We started off with the emergency shelter, we gave to the humane society, the library, to Cochrane Search and Rescue,” she said. “Basically, what we do is I get to phone them up and say, ‘Would you like $40,000 so you can buy that new search and rescue truck?’”

Maryann Peterson, a 12-year volunteer, has been spending Tuesdays and Fridays at the store stocking shelves and helping customers.

“My daily tasks are generally to put products out onto the floor and help customers wherever they need,” she said. “If they’re looking for something specific, I take them to that area of the store and that sort of thing.”

Peterson says she knows her work is helping others.

“All the money that we make is going back into the community,” she said. “So, it’s just another way of helping other than just volunteering here.”

Robyn Roy from the Cochrane Humane Society says the facility currently has 79 dogs and 67 cats in its care, and funds from Home Treasures helps them care for the animals.

“Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to help these animals the way that we did and get them on the right, healthy start to finding their next family,” she said.

Chairra Nicolle from Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) says the organization receives funding from the provincial and municipal governments, but Home Treasures fills in the gaps in programing for its clients.

“The funds that we receive here provide stability for our team to ensure that all of our residents are supported,” she said. “Thank you to Home Treasures for 20 years of support with all of our programs and services.”

“We couldn’t do what we do without Home Treasures’ support.”