HighJinx helps their neighbours practically and directly, skipping the bureaucracy

Alayne McGregor

HighJinx celebrated its 10th anniversary this March, providing non-bureaucratic, practical help to people in need, supported in part by selling vintage collectibles to those who can afford them.

The Centretown social enterprise is located at 290 Kent Street, just north of Somerset Street West. HighJinx gives out free food, clothing, and furniture, with no questions asked. Two former social workers, Karen Nielsen and Leigh Reid, founded the store after deciding they wanted to take a different approach to social services.

“We were just tired of the traditional system, working in that field and trying to help people with our hands tied, basically. So we found an easier way to do it, and that was HighJinx, with no government involvement. Just simply neighbours helping neighbours.”

Nielsen told The BUZZ they never expected to still be running HighJinx 10 years later. “Honestly, no. We didn’t know when we started where this would go. It’s gone to the greatest place. But 10 years – that’s quite something.”

Donations fuel the store

They accept donated items and either sell them or give them away, she said. “We use that money – the profits from the sales – to pay our bills. We don’t take any government funding and the help that we give comes from those sales and the generosity of the community providing food and goods that we can give to neighbours.”

She emphasized that HighJinx’s work is heavily supported by volunteers, including those who bake muffins, make home-cooked meals, or provide fruits, vegetables, and canned goods. It regularly receives food from restaurants and farms, she said, but not from the Ottawa Food Bank because it doesn’t meet the Food Bank’s criteria.

“People can ask for whatever they need”

In order to keep social distancing, food and other necessities are currently handed out without people entering the store. The store is open four days a week – Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday – from 1 to 4 p.m. Unlike the Food Bank, there’s no limit on how often people can request food, she said. “It’s not just once a month. They can come every day.”

“We just have a sharing model. We share what we have everyday. Some days it’s plentiful and other days it’s not. That’s how we get through.

“People can ask for whatever they need – diapers, socks, a kettle. If we have it, we give it.”

Nielsen said she and Reid also separately help people who need assistance with government agencies. The pandemic has allowed more time for those one-on-one meetings.

The need for HighJinx’s services has increased over the last decade, she said. “Especially in this last year, but we’ve only seen the need increasing. We see new faces every day. Things are just more expensive, housing stability is difficult to maintain, and the dollar doesn’t stretch further. There’s a lot of families that just don’t get enough.”

In their previous jobs with the city, Nielsen and Reid had proposed it create a furniture bank, so they knew that was a need. When they started HighJinx, it was to provide furniture and food.

In order to fund this, they “begged and borrowed from our friends and family for all their unused things, and started the store. People thought we were crazy, but it seems to be working.”

The store’s eclectic stock was inspired and informed by Nielsen and Reid’s personal “real joy for garage-saling.” The store’s twitter feed (@HighJinxOttawa) regularly features interesting pieces for sale. Recent items have included Denby pottery, a blanket box, Easter Bunny figurines, an antique pine pedestal table, dimmable grow lights, plastic accessories for Potato Head toys, and a barrister’s bookcase.

“Right now I’m sitting in front of a Tiffany lamp that was brought in today. It’s huge and gorgeous! We’ve had dishes that are really worth something. But, if someone drops something off and we find it’s quite valuable, we contact that person just to make sure they know what they were gifting. Most times they know and that’s their generosity.”

Some items stick around while other things quickly go out the door, Nielsen said. “I don’t know how to explain that. We never know.” If an item hasn’t sold after a while it will be given away in the store’s furniture bank or on the free shelf outside the front door. “We clean out the store a lot by just giving [things] away. We can only keep so much.”

Sometimes clothing, such as winter outerwear, will also be left hanging alongside the free shelf to be picked up. “We put coats up there, clothes, food – and little surprises in the pockets.”

The pandemic “changed everything” for HighJinx. “We had to make room in the store, and we haven’t had the store open very much because of the lockdown. We try to keep space for the vulnerable because that is our priority – that we can help people and feed them and do our outreach work.

“We’ve had to do some online sales and be more creative selling things out of the store window. We do more work in the community: visiting, dropping things off, checking on people. We spend a lot of time on the phone with people who are isolated or can’t get out to make sure they have what they need.”

They’ve also spent time referring people to city services and educating people about COVID-19.

“There’s been a lot of learning this year. We’ve had to learn new safety protocols to do home visits, for example. We try to conduct most things outside if we can.”

During the lockdown, Nielsen and Reid completely renovated HighJinx’s kitchen “to keep ourselves busy” and to get more room. They use the kitchen for making some meals, as well as distributing premade food, she said.

The store relies heavily on volunteers. Pre-pandemic they had a roster of 25 people who would rotate through, doing different tasks, but since the pandemic they can only have one volunteer to help in the store. Right now, people are volunteering to help with outreach or donating groceries.

The people HighJinx serves come from across the Ottawa, especially if they need housewares or furniture to set up a new home, Nielsen said. “We don’t have any boundaries. Anyone can come here.”

But HighJinx does serve many street-involved people from Centretown, and the people in the general area of the store are the biggest percentage of their clients.

What’s next for HighJinx? “We don’t really plan that. We’ve been winging it for 10 years. When we opened we didn’t know it would evolve into this. We had no idea.”

Their latest experiment, which they will unveil in late spring or summer, is a podcast series telling behind-the-scenes stories, and including interviews with neighbours and community members.

“We find that Centretown is a very generous and compassionate community. What we hear from people is that they’re learning that there’s vulnerability in this community that they weren’t aware of, that they are more inspired to get involved and help their neighbours directly, one on one,” Nielsen said.