The Salvation Army is on the move and with a new facility, will be better suited to serve the needs of the community.
The Drumheller church just purchased the building at 90 Railway Avenue, which most recently housed ATCO Electric’s local offices.
“It’s been a long time coming, so it is a very exciting time,” said Captain Jennifer Hillier of The Salvation Army.
The facility is just over 9,300 square feet. With this purchase The Salvation Army is able to bring together its church ministry, community services, including the food bank, and thrift store, all under one roof.
“It is just one level, so we will be separating the building into different sections. The thrift store operations will be in the front of the building (south side) the other sections of the building will house our community service and Church ministry,” said Hillier.
Accessibility for the congregation and the users of its services will be met with the new property.
“Many people know we have been looking for an appropriate space for quite some time. Our current properties have been challenging in many ways for us, so this new space will be accessible, it’s all one level so there are no stairs. We will have the appropriate mechanisms in place to accommodate folks with different abilities, so that is really exciting for us,” said Hillier.
It will also allow the church to more effectively deliver their programs and even grow.
“When we think about the long term and the vision for our community services, and programs we have been running, I think it opens up new doors for programs and maybe invite some new people in because of the location and accessibility,” she said.
There are no firm timelines for the move. There will be extensive renovations to the facility before they can inhabit the space. Hillier says they anticipate it will be well into 2018 before they are able to move.
The new space will help create efficiencies.
“It will be nice to get in there and get established and re-direct more of our resources back into our programming. That is a key part of the vision, it will enable us to better serve the community,” she said.
