Three years ago, the not-for-profit Global Ripple Charity Op Shop was devastated by a fire. One week later it rose phoenix-like from the ashes on a wave of support from the local community. Saturday marked its reopening in a new home.
After nearly three years, the resilient charity op shop’s latest relocation has been to 268 Ewingsdale Road, Byron Bay.
Jenni Scarpella, long-time worker for Global Ripple says the op shop is now ‘totally open’ for donations. ‘The more stuff people can bring, the better.’
Fire and recovery
‘The fire and recovery was a wild time,’ Ms Scarpella told The Echo. ‘Everybody came together across the whole community, from Brisbane to Sydney.’
‘Everybody who had followed our journey was helping to donate goods and get us back on our feet.
‘We were fortunate enough to be offered a space on a developer-owned site down the road, and we were able to turn a shed into a reasonable op shop that lasted us nearly three years.
‘But now that site is on the verge of development, and so our op shop has had to move homes once again,’ Ms Scarpella explained.
Origins and motivation
The Global Ripple charity was founded by Jacqui Boyett, whose experiences in Yasawas, Fiji imparted to her the devastating inequalities in healthcare and security felt by many communities across the world.
It started with helping fund a dental repair and education plan on an island in Yasawas. Then, in 2015, Global Ripple helped fund earth-quake relief for a remote Nepalese village.
‘We currently fund a dispensary in Vanuatu to provide locals with a healthcare centre,’ Ms Scarpella said.
‘The idea of this op shop was to create funds to support communities in need! All our money goes toward other not-for-profits or emergency relief disasters, or other smaller groups trying to do similar things.
‘We give international aid, but we heavily support locally as well,’ she said.
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