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Salvation Army donation centre and thrift store to open this week

Take donations to Sally Ann

Sarita Patel

The Salvation Army will be reopening its Donation Welcome Centre today, welcoming the public to bring in any donations they may be holding onto during the pandemic. The Rutland location is one of five stores to open their doors in British Columbia and the first in the Interior. 

The centre will be receiving mostly everything it typically takes in, except cloth-covered furniture at this time.

“If it’s something that could be wiped down easily and sanitized we’ll receive those items still because they can go directly onto our sales floor,” explains Darryl Burry, lead pastor and executive director for the Kelowna and Lake Country Salvation Army.

“If you have a couch, maybe a fabric couch we’re going to ask you to hold off on those items for the time being until we’re able to find out different measures to make sure everything can be sanitized effectively.”

They also ask people who would like to donate to come during the store hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. as donations left outside tend to get ruined. 

“People tend to rummage through those items overnight and then typically what happens is the next day we need to take all of those items to the dump, they’ve been destroyed,” explains Burry.  

The Salvation Army has seen a significant increase in families and individuals accessing their services over the last couple of months and Burry says they ‘don’t see that slowing down anytime soon.’

“We’ve seen approximately between 25 to 30 per cent of those accessing our services each month have been brand new, who have never accessed our services before.”

They did receive grants and donations throughout the pandemic but those funds were specified to food purchased only. 

“We still need to pay the bills, so the funds from the thrift store sales enable us to keep all of those bills paid and as you can imagine without being in operation for the past two months, we’re really missing that resource.”

Burry adds “all of the funds remain local here in Kelowna and go directly to support the services we are offering to the community.”

People will have a different shopping experience at the thrift store starting on Wednesday. 

They will only be allowing 12 customers at a time, sanitization centres and social distancing markers are placed throughout the store along with change rooms are closed at this time. 

With customers unable to try on the clothes they’ve adapted the return policy to meet the needs of the customers and will be holding onto returned clothing for a minimum of two days before they’re processed for the sales floor.

“We want to make sure it’s going to be a safe experience for our customers and those coming into the stores as well as our staff,” adds Burry. 

The Welcome Donation Centre opens up today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the Thrift Store opens on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both will be open from Monday to Saturday.



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