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May 24, 2007

Salvation Army moves thrift store

Family Store bigger and better

By Dan Linehan

MANKATO — The sales floor at the Salvation Army thrift store has nearly tripled in size and it has a new, more inclusive name. But the mission — a cheap retail option whose profits help locals in need — remains the same.

The Family Store emphasizes its target audience, Capt. Bill Mealy said, which is everyone and not just the poor and homeless.

And the square footage has increased from 3,500 to 9,700, causing what first-day shopper Ramona Czer described as a more “open, airy” atmosphere.

The New Ulm resident had come Thursday afternoon to pick up some pottery to show to her daughter, an amateur potter.

“Obviously, I picked up a few other things,” she added with a laugh, her hands cradling some other stuff.

Mealy expects the move to the hill — near the River Hills Mall and within five blocks of two other thrift stores — to generate more revenue. Already, thrift store profits generate about $260,000 of the Salvation Army’s $1.3 million annual budget.

Just a few hours after it opened, about two dozen shoppers meandered through the spacious aisles.

Leah Edwards was buying baby clothes for Annabel, her three-month-old daughter.

“It’s bigger, which makes it better,” she said.

But staff at the store aren’t worried about filling the space.

Mankato is a generous community, manager Trulie Bolton said. Between Bolton and assistant manager Toni Lund, there are more than 47 years of Salvation Army experience at the store.

They’re definitely veterans, but neither can recall the first Salvation Army thrift store. It’s moved around often over the past decades, they said.

The Blue Earth County Historical Society dug up a 1988 Free Press story that said the first Salvation Army store went up in 1888.

The old thrift store, near the Salvation Army headquarters on Riverfront Drive, will be converted into a youth center, Mealy said. He’d eventually like the headquarters to move, too, but that will take lots of fundraising.

Meanwhile, thrift shop devotees like Czer have another stop on the hilltop circuit.

And she admits to being a thrift store, well ...

An “addict.”

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