By By JESSICA SIEFF / Niles Daily Star
NILES – This Saturday the Salvation Army Thrift Store at 2911 S. 11th Street in Niles will close for good. But it will close with heavy doors.
The Niles store has been part of a total of nine Michiana stores that operate in order to provide funding for the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center. The rehabilitation center is a six to 12 month long program for men who suffer with addictions to drugs and alcohol. Of those nine stores, the Niles and LaPorte Indiana locations will close, leaving the South Bend, Elkhart, Goshen, Michigan City and Plymouth locations open in Indiana.
The move is a push to consolidate product and generate revenue, according to Major Timothy Best, administrator at the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center.
"This has been in the process," Best said, since near the end of June 2007. Stores like the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Niles are stocked with donated goods, and according to Best when it comes to those donations, "for the past two years, it's fallen off regularly."
A decrease in donations can mean less revenue at particular stores, Best explained. Customers coming in to sparsely stocked shelves and limited goods may not come back. "The more stuff you have in a particular store, the more people you get in (the store)," he said, which could lead to an increase in revenue.
"This has been a downward trend," Best said. Several elements could be attributed to the falling number of donations coming into the Salvation Army stores in the area. Rising food and fuel prices, a struggling economy, but Best said he hates to speculate solely on those aspects. "The fact is there are a lot of organizations out there utilizing the resale items," he said. "We can't ignore the fact that we're dealing with items that people replace." People may be hanging on a little longer to those items these days, which means there's less to offer those who need to replace their own. "It's a Catch-22."
Right now, donations that the Salvation Army picks up for resale are transported to a central location in South Bend. "At four dollars a gallon," Best said. "That's a costly process." All items are sorted and prepared before being distributed to each of the Michiana stores – and right now, there's less to go around. By closing two of its stores, the center hopes its remaining stores will be better stocked.
"What we've seen is by doubling the product on the floor. "We increase the sales," Best said.
In addition, the organization will save on overhead costs and property value. "We own those properties, so there is some value," Best said – to putting each property up for sale.
Best called the move to close the Niles and LaPorte location "simply an economic decision." But he also recognizes that he is talking about people's lives as well – those who will no longer have jobs to report to come Monday and those who are looking to the rehabilitation center for help. Closing the Niles store will eliminate a total of five positions, two full time and three part time, as well as four positions being eliminated in LaPorte, two at the rehabilitation center and two part-time positions at another location.
"It's a decision we didn't enter into lightly," Best said.
"A couple million dollars" is what Best estimates is needed to keep the rehabilitation center running, which reports that it serves "hundreds of men a year from throughout the greater Michiana area." And there's no way to tell just yet how much money will be saved by closing the Niles and LaPorte locations.
"Our goal is to reach a level of stability," he said. "And to move forward from that."
The need for stability is one that those who take part in the program at the rehabilitation center may understand. And it's with those people in mind that Best is fighting to make the thrift stores throughout Michiana as effective and profitable as possible. He's been through the process himself. "I'm doing everything I can to fight for this program and this ministry," he said. "The impact (of the program) is a whole lot more than just one guy."
Niles residents can still support the Salvation Army Rehabilitation Center by shopping at any of the other thrift store location and Best said that vouchers would still be honored.