Bismarck Tribune

By VIRGINIA GRABy VIRGINIA GRANTIER

The Salvation Army is closing its Mandan thrift shop Saturday, but there could be other changes ahead, too - including consolidating all of its operations in Bismarck, leaving no services in Mandan.

Michael Bommarito, the Army's community relations and development director, said the Salvation Army still will keep an office at the thrift shop location - the old American Legion building at 201 Fourth Ave. NW - for a couple more months to provide social services such as emergency help and rent and utilities assistance. But he said discussion is taking place about moving those services, too, and consolidating - having the Army's entire operation at its Bismarck location, 601 S. Washington St.

Problems with the Mandan operation started several months ago.

The Salvation Army's thrift shop, which moved to a new Mandan location about three months ago, will close at the end of the business day Saturday because of a growing deficit and other problems, said Bommarito.

"It's been a real difficult thing … but we need to do something different," he said Tuesday.

Bommarito said several things compounded the store's problems, leading to the recent decision to close. The problems actually started before they moved into the new location.

Bommarito said the previous location, a building owned by the Salvation Army in south Mandan, had to be closed immediately in May because of a leaking and collapsing roof - but a suitable alternative location couldn't be found and moved into until August. During that lag time, three full-time thrift store employees still had to be paid, even though no thrift-store revenues were coming in to offset salary costs.

By the time the thrift store could be moved into the new location in August, a $28,000 deficit had accumulated because of such things as salaries and moving costs.

And since moving in, the deficit has continued to climb. It's now at about $32,000, Bommarito said.

He said the new location's revenues are below the old location's. At the new location, the revenues are about $150 to $200 daily. At the old location, a typical day would bring in $300 to $400. In addition, just running the store has been tough because the store's manager is out indefinitely with a bad back. A second employee resigned. That leaves the one remaining paid employee and some volunteers to run the store. To help them, Salvation Army employees normally assigned other duties - such as working with clients to provide emergency services and rent and utility assistance - are now having to help at the thrift store.

"It was a tough, tough, tough business decision," said Salvation Army Maj. Dale Hale, in charge of the Bismarck and Mandan operations, about the closure.

But he said that allowing a losing operation to continue wasn't the best use of the Salvation Army's funds.

"That's not really a good service to the community, doing that,"he said.

He said that personnel from divisional headquarters in Roseville, Minn., came here to discuss the problem in October and the decision was made Oct. 26 to close.

Bommarito said if the decision is made to move to Bismarck, the Mandan clients will need to come to Bismarck to get emergency help and rent and utilities assistance. But he said that's the case now for their Bismarck clients who have to come to Mandan because those services are only offered at the Mandan location.

Hale said a committee is looking at the Bismarck facility to determine if consolidation would work. The Bismarck facility provides after-school day care and other programs for children so a committee is looking at design options, such as the possibility of adding classroom space in the chapel.

Barb Doan, an employment assistant for Experience Works, an organization that helps people 55 and older find employment through training programs, said she thinks it's too bad that the thrift store is shutting down.

"I think it's very important that we have as many second-hand stores as we can,"she said.

She said she knows seniors who are strapped financially. Some had a lot of money in stocks and lost it when the stocks took a dive. She knows some people who are paying as much as $2,000 for medications.

She said in some second-hand stores, prices are high enough that "they can't even afford to buy clothing there."

But she said Salvation Army's prices were pretty reasonable and she'd like it to stay.

Through Saturday, closing day, the prices will be extremely reasonable. In the store's final sale, all items are 50 cents or less.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarck tribune.com.)