(Above) More than 200 shoppers line up to visit the Empress Thrift Store in Winnipeg during its grand reopening event in September 2022

Since its creation in 1995, The Salvation Army’s National Recycling Operations (NRO) has been mandated to financially support the territory through dividends. However, territorial profits were inconsistent and, at times, the NRO was unable to meet its obligations, ultimately ceasing payments to divisions.

In early 2020, the NRO was well on its way to being able to pay dividends again, but the pandemic interrupted all progress and stores across Canada were left unable to operate. “Suddenly, we had stores with long leases and no revenue. We had no option but to accumulate debt,” says Lt-Colonel Fred Waters, secretary for business administration.

Emerging out of the pandemic with 98 stores across Canada, 11 distribution and recycling centres, and more than 1,900 employees, NRO has managed to turn around a $4-million deficit and begin to make profits once again. NRO is able to provide dividends back to the territory, with each division receiving $250,000 of unspecified funds in 2022.

“Often, the more specific the donation, the harder it is to allocate it,” explains Lt-Colonel Waters. “An ‘unspecified’ fund is free of strings attached and gives the division the ability to do things they may not normally be able to do.

“These funds will typically be used in support of community work. The whole idea of NRO even having a profit is that those funds come back to The Salvation Army to support programs, services and community,” Lt-Colonel Waters says.

“Prior to the pandemic, we had taken more than 1,000 of our employees on tours of different ministry units to give the NRO staff insight into what Salvation Army social services look like and to help them understand why they do what they do,” says Ted Troughton, managing director of NRO. “We anticipate starting this again in 2023.”

At this rate, Lt-Colonel Waters believes that next year the dividend will be even greater, offering more support to divisions to use funds wherever the need is greatest. “I hope we can celebrate this latest success of NRO having turned a corner,” he says. “Ted Troughton has provided tremendous leadership and his team has worked very hard.” 

This story is from: