Powell River’s Salvation Army Thrift Store will have its final day this weekend.
Major Rosanne Fraser said it was a difficult decision to close the shop at #1-7030 Alberni Street after nine years.
“For the last five years it’s been getting worse and worse, we’re losing money. It’s the cost of the rent and then our employees and then pay utilities and we’ve been in the hole for the last five years and we didn’t feel we could continue to keep doing that,” Fraser said in an interview with Vista Radio.
She says the decision has been “hard on everybody” – volunteers, staff and herself, making the decision.
But Fraser says the Sally Ann will still be in the community with its other services including the food bank and mobile food truck.
“We’re still going to have the food bank. I am going to have four racks of clothes that if somebody comes in and they need something, I’ll let them try on a jacket or whatever it be. Our food truck will still be going out on Wednesday nights and, that’s the one thing, I didn’t want to have to close everything Salvation Army,” she said.
Fraser says they’ve partnered with another local thrift store to help families in times of crisis, such as recovering from a fire. “We’ll give them a letter to take to the other thrift store and they will honour that and they wouldn’t have to pay anything for whatever they get.”
The thrift store’s final day is Saturday (Aug. 9) and Fraser says there will be a cake to thank the community for their support.
“We really just want to thank the community. We couldn’t have done what we have done in the nine years without the support of the community both in donations and monetary donations, just in coming in to see how things are going. It’s been a real outreach that’s going to be missed but we’re going to try and continue that in a different way,” Fraser said.
“We really want the community to know that Salvation Army is still in Powell River and it will still always be there,” she noted.
The Salvation Army has helped people and families in Powell River since 1956.
