MERIDIAN, Miss. (Queen City Newsfeed) – The Salavation Army has been around for 159 years. The charity organization has been in America since 1880, and it came to Meridian in April of 1902.
Many people recognize the organization as a thrift store, but as Lt. Roy Fisher explains— it’s much more than that.
“We’re a church before we’re anything else,” said Fisher. “Well, we have a church service every Sunday. At 10 o’clock we do Sunday school. At 11 o’clock we do our holiness meeting, our worship service. Starting in the fall, we’re going to start back with our youth activities as well as starting some older adult ministries as well”
The Salvation Army classes don’t stop at Sunday School.
“We have our ‘Pathway of Hope’ program. That is a phenomenal program to help bring families out of the generational poverty cycle,” said Fisher.
Of course, the Salvation Army is always there in the event of an emergency.
“Food, we do clothing, we do furniture for those that are fire victims, flood victims, disaster victims. We have emergency disaster services. We have a little bit of everything,” said Fisher.
So how does the organization pay for all of this? Donations are a big part of that, but there’s also the Family Store.
“In our thrift store, which is at 2306 North Frontage Road, we have so much. We have men’s clothes, we have children’s clothes, we have shoes, we have evening gowns, we have wedding dresses, we have Christmas items already out,” stated Fisher. “If you’re looking for something, chances are we’re going to have it here.”
The goal of the salvation army is to help people, but Lt. Fisher said at the core that, there’s another end goal.
“We want to bring people to the kingdom of God,” said Fisher.
The Salvation Army Family store is open Tuesday – Saturday from 10am to 5pm.
