#MeetDowntownBrampton: Perpetual Bazaar

#MeetDowntownBrampton: Perpetual Bazaar

What do you love most about running a small business?
Meeting the people of Brampton. We enjoy sitting and chatting with our customers. Knowing that we are helping senior citizens and disabled in our community to stay involved, keep their minds and fingers active and reminding them that they still have valuable skills to offer. In 2019, we will be celebrating our 45th anniversary as a retail business in downtown Brampton.

What inspired you to open your business?
Originally founded in 1974 by a group of citizens out of a church basement to be a support to the senior citizens of our community, the Perpetual Bazaar has grown through much hard work and dedication into the retail establishment that is located on Brampton’s Main Street today. Everything in our store is hand-made by senior citizens or people with disabilities. We have 200+ vendors, many of whom possess 70+ of experience in arts that are becoming increasingly in demand while harder to find in this day of mass produced throwaways. We are well known for our quality products and novelty items ranging from simple bookmarks to heirloom quilts and just about anything in between. If we don’t have it on the shelf, there is a good chance we may know just where to get it made. We are still a community based registered charity, our Board of Directors and staff are made up entirely by volunteers from the community.

What do you love most about our city/downtown?
The friendly people – sometimes they come in to buy, sometimes to ask advice on them crafting hobbies, sometimes just to chat – and if we have helped make their day just a little brighter it makes us feel good as well. The sense of history – there is still character downtown, a mix of the old with the new, not yet overpowered by cold, impersonal glass and steel. The sense of community with activities such as the farmers market, special downtown events and gathering places like Garden Square or Gage Park. .

– Jane Matthew (Vice President) and Kat Pechmann (President), Perpetual Bazaar, in downtown Brampton since 1974.