“They’re not dead yet,” I thought. A worn, black pair of Nike running shoes, sporting a few holes and a tear or two, served as my footwear at work during the first months at the Keep Alliance Beautiful Recycling Center. After a near miss or two between something heavy and my toes, sturdier seemed safer. The solution came while on a Saturday walk downtown with my family – bag day at The Mission Store, Inc. Ah, a tan pair the right size with steel toes with a sack of other goodies for just 16 bits!
The list of non-residential locations KAB picks up regularly for recycling is edging up to around 70 this summer. Restaurants and retail stores are the most common examples. This free service yields mostly cardboard from the totes, doorways and alleys, yet each place has a mix unique to the nature of the particular entity. I gather a pile of medium-size boxes from behind The Mission Store, usually on Fridays, as volunteers process donations during the week. One of the ladies there often brings large bags of hangers and plastic sacks by on her way home. By just surveying these items it would be easy to guess “second hand store,” and you’d be right of course, however there is more to the quiet store at Second and Box Butte.
A few decades ago, Mom would take my brothers and I to garage sales and thrift stores. The Indian Mission store, then next door to the Indian Mission Church of God, was a local stop. We ran around on the concrete floors between aisles of clothes, stopping to look at a box of assorted belt buckles or another curiosity, before bargaining for a 25-cent toy at the checkout table. Sales at that time funded the church and its work.
Sitting among clothing bales in their storage area last week, Reva Fielding, one of about eight people on The Mission Store’s board of directors, described the organization’s roots. She said the original Indian Mission store had been operated for at least a couple decades by Brother and Sister Mink. “In spring of 2000 there was a group that didn’t want it to go by the wayside,” she recalled. “They formed a board and have operated it ever since.” The Mission Store opened 22 years ago in a Quonset hut on Flack Ave. before moving to its current location where they bought what had been a dry cleaners and the building next door. Open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, around 15 workers are active from a pool of 30-40. The store runs entirely on volunteers with board members who also donate their time.
My son, reading my column as I wrote it, set a business card from The Mission Store next to our laptop. A multicolored recycling-arrow symbol is at the top. Under the name, it states: The Best Little Store Around; Reduce – Reuse – Recycle. An apt statement. Thousands of local residents over the years have reduced the amount of stuff in their homes while tidying up, following garage sales or during the moving process. Reva said, “We do get a lot of appreciation at the back door (where donations are accepted) . . .”
Reuse comes on the other side of the coin – sales. Everyone leaving the stores will reuse whatever they bought from clothing to furniture. “Our No. 1 mission is to recycle to others to get clothes for people in need and people wanting cheap clothes,” Reva said. The Mission Store is an asset during emergencies, such as fires, where people can come for clothing and possessions lost.
Since the Covid pandemic began donations have increased. Clothing not purchased by the end of the season (summer/winter) is baled then sold for pennies on the pound. Typically, the store sells two semi-truck loads (43,000-45,000 pounds) a year.
The Mission Store supports area organizations through mini-grants. In 2021, profits from sales meant nearly $64,000 for new applicants as well as recurring recipients such as the Ministerial Association and Bulldog Backpack Program. Grants are awarded annually in mid-October with information posted on their facebook page, allancemissionstoreinc.
Other people take advantage of this charitable organization. Reva described a couple common situations. In some cases, individuals leave obviously unusable items that end up in The Mission Store’s Dumpster or must be taken to the landfill. Another example is people who stop by and help themselves to donations sitting outside, even resorting to threats in one case if the volunteer were to report the incident.
Reva has seen many changes after 10 years on the board. “What I enjoy most and why I keep doing it is it’s a good service, it’s a good work – we all get some sense of satisfaction from doing good.