Free store that helped Ukrainians rebuild lives now helping them forge a community

After two years of providing household items and clothing for people fleeing the war in Ukraine, the Free Store For Ukrainian Newcomers is transitioning from a relief organization into a community hub.

First established a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, the store's co-founders had planned to close it after the March 31 end of the federal government program providing temporary emergency visas to Ukrainians.

But seeing how the store had become a gathering space for the Ukrainian newcomer community, co-founders Jorgia Moore and Janice Krissa decided in March to turn it into a community hub. 

"From the get-go, it became more than just a shopping centre," Moore told CBC's Edmonton AM.

LISTEN | Free Store converts to a community hub:

The hub, which opened on May 4, offers a space for people to gather and participate in activities like painting, dancing and cooking. It will also offer counselling for those who need it, and information sessions on building a life in Edmonton. 

Apart from co-founders Moore and Krissa, everyone who volunteers and works at Free Store is a Ukrainian newcomer. 

From the beginning, Moore said, people would come in as shoppers looking for household items and then return the following day as a volunteer to help others in a similar situation.  

"It also was an excuse to leave the house, to have a bit of a distraction from what's going on back home and create friendships, meet new people," Moore said.

Moore said entire families would come to the store to socialize. Their kids would be excited to meet people their age who also spoke the same language. "They always told me, 'This is my best friend. I just met them,'" she said.

Lilia Vovk moved to Edmonton in 2022 and first heard about Free Store through Facebook. After getting the items she needed from the store, she returned in January 2024 to volunteer. Four months later, she became a manager. 

She said the store is important for her and the community. 

"When I come here, we all are together," she said. "We feel safer and like family here."

The idea to convert the space into a formal gathering space came from the community of newcomers themselves, according to Krissa, the store's other co-founder.  

"They came to us and they said we don't want to close it. We need to keep this going," Krissa said. 

But it won't be easy.

Free Store has enough funding to keep afloat until the end of May. Krissa said she has started selling $50 memberships to the community hub in hopes of generating revenue, adding, "People are welcome to donate even more." 

Krissa has also applied for grants, which she hopes they will receive by July. 

"Right now, the memberships, we are hoping, will carry us for the next four weeks until we get the grants in place," she said.

She also believes her other venture Don'ya Ukraine's Kitchen — where volunteers make and sell Ukrainian food —- will help fund the hub in the meantime. 

Free Store started when Krissa started to collect items for a family friend in Poland. But her friends and family donated so much that there were a lot of donations left over. That's when she set up a system to donate the remaining items to those in need. 

"It was supposed to be a two-week endeavour," Krissa said.

But word got around and people kept donating and Ukrainians kept coming to the store. In February 2023, the store moved from a yoga studio to a building leased from MacEwan University, on 108th Street and 105th Avenue. 

The store has helped around 20,000 Ukrainian newcomers, setting them up with household goods, kitchen items, diapers, toiletries and clothing.