By Callum Ludwig
A much-loved op shop in the Upper Yarra is seeking someone to give it a new lease on life and prevent it from a sad closure.
The Golden Opportunity Shop was first opened in Seville in 2009 before relocating to Wandin North in 2014, has been run by the Anglican Parish of Wandin, Seville and Mount Evelyn and operated by volunteers from in and out of the church community.
Committee member of the Golden Opportunity Shop Glenda Fraser has said they have managed to give back locally and further afield through running the shop.
“Our main aim of the shop was to connect with the community and to give back to the community, a small part of our takings goes back to the church just to help with special projects in the church but the majority of the money goes to community groups,” she said.
“We’ve built up pretty strong relationships with local schools, scouts and guides, the CFA and different welfare groups in the valley, like LinC, Benwerren, the Mustard Tree and Anglicare,”
“We’ve also always tried to do a national fund and in the last few years, because of flooding, because of drought, you name it, we’ve had it all over the country, we’ve distributed quite a bit of money to CWAs (Country Women’s Associations) in Queensland, NSW and Victoria to help with relief and even sent some funds internationally as well.”
Initially based on the site of the current Woolworths in Seville, the shop was forced to move when the site was bought but the shop wasn’t held back, with the next few years seeing their volunteer force more than quadruple and recognition be given for their efforts, including receiving the Rotary Club of Wandin’s Community Service Award in 2017.
Ms Fraser said they are having to give up the shop due to the aging church congregation.
“Churches are facing a real decline, and it’s difficult to get younger people into churches now, so we’re having a bit of a battle at our church to maintain numbers and of course, our populations are getting older and older,” she said.
“The number of people that can donate time to work in the op shop is just reducing and reducing, my husband and I work a lot behind the scenes, doing the things that nobody else can do, because we’re fairly able-bodied but the big crunch has come because we’re moving out of the area and there’s just nobody to take over the job that we do,”
“So it’s coming to a not very nice finale at the moment, where we are facing the closure of the shop. I’ve reached out to so many different groups but they are getting out of running op shops, so we just keep coming up against brick walls.”
Without a new owner, the Golden Opportunity Shop is set to shut on Friday 26 April.
Ms Fraser said the op shop is all set up and ready to go for anyone who might want to take it on.
“We’ve got a very dedicated clientele who come from near and far, not just local areas and we pride ourselves on running a pretty good shop, but we get good feedback about it, I was working there on Saturday and I had a lady come in and as she was at the counter making a purchase she told me how much she loved it,” she said.
“She was just so full of praise for it and I almost cried and couldn’t bring myself to tell her we were going to have to close,”
“We’ve been really well supported by lots of people from the community because the shop is part of their life, they’ve built relationships with the other volunteers and it’s now almost part of their social structure.”
Ms Fraser encouraged anyone interested in continuing on the life of the Golden Opportunity Shop to contact her at 0433 554 949.
