Salvation Army holds opening ceremony at new Beckenham shop

Shoppers were queuing outside the door at the new Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd (SATCoL) charity shop at 250 High Street, Beckenham on Thursday 14th May as it opened its doors to the public for the first time.

The opening ceremony was a huge success, with Major Gareth Heward cutting the ribbon to officially open the new high street shop and the lucky first customer being presented with a box of chocolates.

[Inside the shop]

SATCoL’s Area Manager, Salvador Fernandez was delighted by the positive response during the opening ceremony: “The reaction from the local community has been outstanding - there was a queue of about 20 people outside despite the miserable weather! We’ve received so many compliments about the shop and its stock, and we’d like to thank the fantastic people of Beckenham for coming along to show their support.”

Salvador added: “We are currently looking for volunteers at the Beckenham 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 really do rely on the generosity of our volunteers, so if you think you can spare any time at all, even if just for a few hours, please do get in touch.

[The team]

“We are also 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,” he continued.

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 £39.5 million to The Salvation Army.

[Inside the shop]

Customers visiting the new shop will be offered one of SATCoL’s innovative loyalty cards. 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.

[Shop window display]

For more information on SATCoL charity shops visit here