The team at a popular east Auckland charity store are being recognised for their hard work and drive to get results.
The Salvation Army Howick Family Store, based in Rices Mall, recently scooped a trio of awards in the charity’s Auckland Central Area.
It was named Top Store runner-up, Surplus to Sales; Top Store runner-up, Sales to Target; and manager Myra Tissing was named Team Leader of the Year.
“It means a great deal for the store and for Howick,” Tissing told the Times.
“It’s not a competition. It’s just running the store properly and organising the stuff that comes in and putting the right prices on them. People come here and they love it.”
The store sells a huge variety of stock including furniture, books, clothes, shoes, bric-a-brac, CDs, jewellery, and more.
Money it makes from sales is used to fund services the Salvation Army provides to people in need around the country.
“They love what we put out there and it’s affordable,” Tissing says of the store’s customers.
The charity’s Auckland Central Area includes its Family Stores in Burswood, Glen Innes, Mount Albert, Mount Eden and Howick.
“We visit each others’ stores to see how well everybody is doing,” she says.
“We share what we’ve got too many of and we share it out to other stores as well.”
Tissing has been at the store for more than 14 years and she’s chuffed to be named Team Leader of the Year.
“I just love it, this is my passion. I’ve won other awards in my life but this is big because it’s for the community.”
The Howick store has three paid staff and about eight volunteers, who do an amazing job, she says.
“My volunteers are the best volunteers you can have. They’re responsible and they work hard.
“When I’m off work, if something happens, they take over the role and work more than one day.
“They work three or four days and they come in and fit in wonderfully.”
She says the store won sales awards because of its stock and its team’s efforts to meet their targets.
“We have to earn the money to hit the sales target or surplus. We work very hard to get those two [awards].
“We work as a group, we support each other, and the girls love what they’re doing.”
The store’s staff and volunteers learned they’d earned the awards at an event staged at the Salvation Army’s headquarters in Mount Wellington.
Tissing praises her area manager, Ryan D’Gama, as a factor in the store’s success.
“He’s brilliant and supportive and he’s always bringing in something for us.
“He appreciates what we do and he goes to the other stores and does the same thing.
“The people who come in here to shop, we appreciate them, and also our people who donate the goods we sell.
“There’s really good stuff here and we clean and wash it and get it sparkling so it looks nice on the shelf.
“We thank them for bringing their stuff here to Howick.”
