The clothing Goodneighbour provides to the community are sourced through individual and organization donations. They are provided to customers at zero cost (Levi Spark, CMRU.ca).
Good Neighbour is a unique, barrier-free free store in downtown Calgary providing clothing, food, toiletries, harm-reduction supplies, and community support to anyone who needs it. There’s no paperwork, questions, or eligibility tests. As co-founder Alice Lam explains, “Good Neighbor started in 2021. And we are a free store for people who are low income who require clothing, food, toiletries, any sort of basic needs as well as referrals to social agencies.”
Serving more than 200 people a day, Good Neighbour has become one of the city’s most essential community resources for low-income seniors, immigrants, youth, and unhoused residents. According to Lam, “We are barrier free… there’s a large enough number of low income seniors, immigrants, and youth that live in the downtown area that we are really at capacity.”
Redirecting Clothing Waste and Fighting Food Insecurity
One of Good Neighbour’s most significant impacts is its contribution to sustainability and waste reduction. Through daily redistribution efforts, the organization has prevented massive amounts of clothing from entering landfills.
Lam describes the scale clearly:
“Since we’ve started, we’ve probably redirected over half a million tons of clothing out of the landfill… Every day we’re basically collecting and redistributing at least 1000 to 1500 clothing items.”
Food support is equally important. Good Neighbour rescues unsold but still good produce and baked goods from local grocery stores and transforms them into hot meals.
Lam explains, “We’re able to breathe new life into them, cook them, and turn them into hot meals for our clients on a daily basis. We see over 200 people five days a week.”
Running this program is costly. “Every week we’re spending about 500 to 800 dollars… to ensure that we provide healthy, clean meals for everybody.”
A Day Space for Safety, Connection, and Community
Goodneighbour uses purchased and donated groceries, as well as still-good products supplied by stores and organizations to help feed their hundreds of weekly customers (Levi Spark, CMRU.ca).
Beyond meeting basic needs, Good Neighbour has evolved into something rare and vital. Lam highlights this shift:
“Good Neighbor has really turned into a downtown day space.”
For people experiencing homelessness or living on very low income, having a safe place to rest or connect is increasingly difficult. Lam explains the growing need:
“There’s not many places for them to go where they can just hang out, build community, reach out to friends and neighbors.”
“You want me to leave the stairwell or alleyway or this public square, but I have nowhere to go.”
Inside Good Neighbour’s day space, people can eat a hot meal, access clothing, connect with social workers, meet clinicians, or simply rest in a community-center-style environment. As Lam describes:
“Whenever you enter the space, you can access the clothing room, you can access the kitchen for meals… you can just sit and hang out, take a nap, talk to your friends.”
With many visitors lacking phones, Good Neighbour even becomes a consistent meeting point:
“A lot of people don’t have phones… so it’s like, hey, I might be at Good Neighbor on Thursday. I’ll be there. And that’s how they’re able to keep in touch with their friendships and their networks.”
How the Community Can Help
Good Thrift is the not-for-profit fundraiser store of Goodneighbour. Funds from Good Thrift help the organization purchase items that are not readily available through donations.
Good Neighbour operates on a tiny budget supported by volunteers, donations, and their small nonprofit
thrift store Good Thrift that helps cover operating costs.
Good Thrift is the not-for-profit fundraiser store of Goodneighbour. Funds from Good Thrift help the organization purchase items that are not readily available through donations. (Levi Spark, CMRU.ca)
Lam notes:
“We do need reliable volunteers… consistency is really, really important.”
In terms of material needs:
“We always need donations of clean adult clothing and shoes… especially men’s clothing; jackets, shoes, pants, work boots, regular runners, socks, underwear.”
If you’re considering donating for the upcoming Winter, Goodneighbour asks for
- jackets
- tarps
- tents
- sleeping bags
- blankets
- and towels
as these items are always in high demand.
Monetary support is equally crucial and helps support daily meals and program costs.
A Message to Students and Young People
Alice Lam credits Good Neighbour’s longevity to the commitment of volunteers, especially young ones.
“The reason Good Neighbor has been able to exist for so many years and be sustainable is because we have such a committed group of volunteers of students.”
Her message to Calgary’s youth is both motivational and direct:
“You have the power to make the change that you want to make in our society.”
“We are always more effective as a group rather than as an individual.”
She encourages students to bring forward ideas, collaborate, and help build a more inclusive city:
“If you have an idea that will make Calgary more sustainable and more affordable and more inclusive, we always want to hear it and we will help if we can.”
If you’d like to get in contact or learn more about Goodneighbour you can visit their website here.
Reflection from the editor:
Before stepping into their space I had gone to their clothing drives, and heard about their space, but I didn’t fully grasp how it is revolutionizing community care in Calgary. Their entire organization is built on compassion, consistency, and the belief that everyone deserves dignity. Watching how people met up with their friends, and shared their stories intimately with the volunteers made it clear that Good Neighbour is far more than a service provider. It’s a community ecosystem where relationships form, trust grows, and people are met where they are at.
What struck me most was the atmosphere: calm, warm, and unapologetically human-centered. People check in on one another. They provide for one another. In a downtown core where public space feels increasingly inaccessible, Good Neighbour has carved out a rare environment of safety without judgment.
I hope that everyone reading this has the opportunity to see a space like Goodneighbour. It will genuinely reshape how you view community in Calgary. I hope that my time working with Goodneighbour amplifies their voice and brings more people to their cause. Conversely I also hope that it inspires you, the reader, to volunteer or donate towards causes like Goodneighbour. Even if it’s a few dollars, I’ve seen how far that can go in a space where people really try to make the most of their resources.
In conclusion, show up and show appreciation for your community. It’s important.
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