Salvation Army receives warm welcome for new Thirsk charity shop

Crowds of Thirsk shoppers flocked to the new Salvation Army Trading Company charity shop at 45 Market Place on Thursday 17th September as it opened its doors to the public for the first time.

The opening ceremony was a big hit with the local community, welcoming dozens of eager bargain hunters to the town’s brand new shop. The Salvation Army’s shops chaplain, Major Ray Mackereth, gave a blessing and cut the ribbon to officially open the new store.

Area Manager, Linda Mayers, was delighted that the shop received such a warm welcome. She said: “It was brilliant to see the shop so busy on its first day of trading and we were so pleased with all the lovely comments. Shoppers had been queuing and eyeing up the window displays before it opened, so those items didn’t stick around very long! Handbags in particular were flying off the shelves.

“We’re really pleased to be establishing a stronger presence in this lovely market town and hope that the shop brings joy to the community for many years to come.”

Linda added: “We are looking for volunteers at the shop and we’d like to encourage anybody interested to pop in and talk to our friendly staff. There are lots of tasks to get involved with, including steaming and hanging clothes, ticketing and coding and we provide training on all aspects of the work. We rely on the generosity of our volunteers, so if you think you can spare any time at all, from a few hours to a few days a week, please do get in touch.  

“We are always grateful to accept donations from the public, whether it’s clothes, shoes, accessories or homewares. We only ask that items are clean and in good condition.”

Profit from the sale of donated clothing contributes to the valuable social welfare work of The Salvation Army, including homelessness and addiction services, care for older people, help at emergency incidents, support for adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales, a Family Tracing Service and much, much more. Over the last five years alone SATCoL has donated over £35 million to The Salvation Army.

Customers visiting the new shop will be offered an innovative loyalty card. The free ‘re:ward’ card rewards customers each time they spend £5 in the shop or donate their unwanted items using one of the shop’s reuseable ‘re:bags’. Each time a customer spends £5, one side of their re:ward card will be stamped, with 10 stamps entitling them to a £5 credit to spend in the shop. On the other side of the card is the reward scheme for donations, which works in conjunction with a re:bag – a reusable black, white and red bag that can be bought at the shop for 99p. Each time a re:bag is brought into the store full of donations, a stamp to the value of £2 will be given.

For more information on the Salvation Army Trading Company charity shops visit here