We collect ANY and ALL gift cards! We are open to any donations, but we primarily encourage grocery, hygiene (Shopper’s Drug Mart, Rexall, etc.), household item stores (Walmart, Canadian Tire, etc.) and fast food cards (McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Starbucks). Our team works hard to find creative ways to use every gift card received to benefit shelters and individuals in need, in the GTA. For gift cards we can’t use (ex: LCBO, high end stores/restaurants), we sell them at a reduced cost (ex: 30% mark down of value) and use the cash funds to purchase items for shelters.
We collect both partially used and new gift cards, as long as there is a remaining balance on the card, we can use it to help people in Toronto experiencing homelessness.
If you would like to donate cash funds to our efforts, please visit https://www.westnh.org/donate/ and make sure to select “Fixthe6ix” in the fund drop down menu.
You can mail us any gift cards you wish to donate to West Neighbourhood House, 248 Ossington Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M6J 3A2, Attn: Fix the 6ix. While we usually encourage you to drop your gift cards at one of our community donation boxes, due to COVID-19 we do not currently have any accessible boxes in the community. Please stay tuned for updates and mail in any donations to the address above for the time being.
Most gift cards do not require gift card registration info, however if they do our team uses a number of tools and strategies to find gift card balances, including calling individual stores to confirm or using online balance checking methods.
We partner with several shelters in Toronto each year and work directly with them to curate “wish lists” of items the folks they serve need. For example, a youth shelter might ask for art supplies, backpacks, and Shopper’s Drug Mart gift cards, while our adult-serving shelters might ask for different items like socks, underwear, winter jackets, and boots or shoes. Our team will get creative with the gift cards that we have available to purchase these items.
We sell these cards at a reduced rate and use the funds to buy items that our shelters need. For example, we sold a $100 Keg Gift card for $70 and used these funds to purchase colouring books and journals for a youth shelter. We always provide a balance confirmation before selling the gift card. We have sold these gift cards in the past at our booth at local street festivals and to friends and family. In the future, we plan to show our available inventory online. In the meantime, if you are interested in purchasing a discounted luxury gift card from us, send us an email at [email protected]