March 25, 2015 (Quad Cities): The Salvation Army announces the closing of the Rock Island Salvation Army Family Store at 2125 - 11th Street, effective March 31, 2015.
The Rock Island Family Store's closure is part of the River Valley Adult Rehabilitation Center's plan called the Diversification Project. The Project's goal is to generate enough funding for growth in the future in order to help more people in need. The Salvation Army provides valuable services to the adults in our community battling addictions. It is our plan to phase out the smaller 5,000-6,000 sq. ft. stores with limited parking and replacing those stores with more modern looking 20,000 to 30,000 sq. ft. stores with a larger variety of goods to choose from, and with plenty of parking.
The first step in moving forward toward this project is closing the Rock Island Family Store. Fortunately, the staff will be reassigned to work at other Salvation Army Family Stores in the area.
Step two will be closing a small store in Clinton and replacing it with a newer and much larger Clinton
Family Store in the summer of 2015. The new Clinton store will be located at 2808 S. 25th Street (formerly Office Max) and will bring 60 new jobs to the area.
Step three involves purchasing a new, larger store in Cedar Rapids to replace a smaller store in that area. The Salvation Army's goal is to open that store by late summer 2015.
The success of the plan will also require each store to be self-processing. Captain Alex Velasquez, Adult Rehabilitation Center Administrator explains, "The Salvation Army strives to help our beneficiaries overcome addictions through work therapy/job training. The larger stores will have the potential to generate more jobs and increase funds to provide addition rehabilitation service in our community, and surrounding areas. The Salvation Army River Valley Adult Rehabilitation Center provides life skills and job training such as Forklift Driving/Certification, Serve Safe Certification for the restaurant industry, a GED program, and much more."
Major Gary Felton, Quad Cities Coordinator, states that "when this community generously donates their gently used items, The Salvation Army uses those items to transform lives. The Quad Cities is very fortunate to have an Adult Rehabilitation Center in our community with services that change not just the men in the program, but their entire families' lives."
Captain Alex also adds that "We will not abandon the Rock Island community and plan to make every effort to find the right location with the space for a new, larger store in Rock Island."
