The Nova Scotia woman and her husband lived in poverty and her paintings sold for only $2 or $3. Lewis only achieved international fame after she died in 1970 and never received the wealth once her paintings started to sell for up to $22,000. U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered two of her paintings for the White House.

“There’s something moving about the work of an artist — who lived most of her life in poverty — supporting those also facing those same realities,” said Rick Cober Bauman, MCC Ontario’s executive director.

It’s fitting that this painting ended up with MCC, Richards agreed.

“It could have gone to any thrift store, but for it to come to us at MCC where we’re so active in anti-poverty programs, it’s hard to believe.”

To celebrate the find and kick off the bidding, MCC has teamed up with the Princess Cinema in Waterloo with another bit of serendipitous timing. The theatre is soon screening the 2016 movie Maudie, starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke. It’s an award-winning new film about Lewis’s life.

Now, one of Maud’s own paintings will be available at an advance screening April 20. Tickets are $50 and proceeds will benefit Mennonite Central Committee. Portrait of Eddie Barnes and Ed Murphy, Lobster Fishermen, Bay View, N.S. will be there for viewing, along with other Maud Lewis pieces owned by a local art enthusiast.

Bidding on this newly-discovered painting will also start that night, then continue online at the MCC Ontario website until May 19. The painting will hang safely at the Homer Watson Gallery for the duration of the auction, where it’s available for public viewing.

This is not the first valuable item given to the New Hamburg Thrift Centre, but often the donors know the value of what they’re giving, Richards said.

“This is certainly a new one for us,” she said. “If it goes for $10,000 it will be our largest single item.”

Richards said this discovery was a real shock at first, but now Lewis’s art can help people long after her death: “It’s a real gift to us.”