Altona Ten Thousand Villages store, 1st in Canada, to close after 47 years

After nearly half a century in business, a fair-trade enterprise in the southern Manitoba town of Altona that was the first in a nationwide chain will shut down in the new year.

The four-person board of the community's Ten Thousand Villages shop unanimously approved the closure at its Dec. 10 meeting for multiple reasons, including declining sales.

"It's sad to see it go," store manager Sarah Wall told CBC Radio Noon host Marjorie Dowhos on Wednesday.

"It has been a fixture in the community. But I think we can be really proud of the work we've done."

People in the town, about 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, have been surprised and shocked to hear about the closure, Wall said, "and everyone is sad to see it go."

Wall said the employees who work at the store, located in the Altona Mall, are disappointed, but they knew about the sales numbers so they were prepared.

The Ten Thousand Villages store in Altona originally opened in 1972 as part of Canada's first Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Thrift Store. When the store was later rebranded, it became the first Ten Thousand Villages location in the country.

As of the end of the 2018-19 fiscal year, there were 24 stores in Canada, according to the organization's latest annual report, where crafts and other items produced by artisans in developing countries are sold.

Manitoba Ten Thousand Villages locations actually combined for the second-most retail sales in Canada, the 2018-19 annual report says. But sales have been declining across the country since at least fiscal 2016-17.

"Growing sales, clearing out excess aging inventory and managing the size of our operating losses will be key themes against which the success of fiscal 2020 will be assessed," Brent Zorgdrager, interim CEO of Ten Thousand Villages Canada, said in the latest report.

The Altona store's last day is expected to be Dec. 31, Wall said. It will be the 11th Canadian location to shut down since 2014.

Wall believes the community is losing an opportunity to support artisans from developing countries "and just a little piece of history as well."

Wall hopes to sell everything in the store before it shuts down. Whatever is left over will go to the Mennonite Central Committee, she said.

The Ten Thousand Villages chain's origins stretch back to 1946, according to the organization's website.

Edna Ruth Byler, an American MCC worker, had visited volunteers in Puerto Rico who were teaching sewing classes to help improve the lives of women living in poverty. When she returned to her home in Pennsylvania, she filled her car with their embroidery and started selling pieces at churches, parties and sewing circles.

Today, Ten Thousand Villages locations across the U.S. and Canada partner with independent small-scale artisans, co-ops and workshops in developing countries to import and sell their products, then pay them a fair living wage in exchange.