The Salvation Army celebrates 120-years of service with an open house

In celebration of their 120th Anniversary of serving The Queen City, The Salvation Army held an open house at their new location, showing the community what they have been working on and what the community has to look forward to.

“We just wanted to show the community, the building that we have, and our vision for the future. So we're planning big we're making big plans and we need the community support, but we want to show them the direction that we're going and how they can help us along that journey to make it an even better thing,” stated Capt. Tamara Robb.

Currently, the center is not fully functioning as Captain Robb says that they are working on installing a kitchen and dining room and for now they are still providing their usual services.

“Well, we have actually right now we have we are doing the community feeding and we do that every evening, 5 pm to 6 p.m. and it's we serve that from our 12th street entrance and then we have our drive-thru food distribution on Mondays from 9 to 11 and then our produce and pastry boxes that we distribute on Wednesdays from 9 to 10,” said Robb.

So far, they have completed classrooms, renovated the rec room, and are now working on funding to get a computer lab.

Robb says,” We hope to do a community center so we have afterschool and summer day camp programs, job readiness classes, all of those things, and senior citizens programs. And so as soon as we have our kitchen and will be able to offer more services.”

Mayor Jimmie Smith was also in attendance at the open house and had this to say.

“Well, you know, salvation army is one of those jewels that we have in the community that looks great. And been it's been a really great session and i come by there is a beautiful building. There's so much more to offer. I just think it's a great opportunity for, you know, for our city in our community, and they are serving our people,” stated Smith.