Salvation Army receives new roof via donation

Published 1:52 pm Monday, August 21, 2017

The Salvation Army is getting ready to make some overdue, necessary repairs to its Washington location.

The organization has been dealing with a leaky roof at the Washington building for the past four years, according to Bruce Rabon, captain of the Salvation Army Corps. But, thanks to a donation from Perdue Farms in Windsor, the organization is preparing to fix the problem for good.

“It’s been leaking just about every time it rains. … It’s just gotten to the point where it really needed to be repaired, and we didn’t really have the funds for it,” Rabon said.

Rabon said the organization’s board members wrote a letter to Perdue Farms requesting funds to repair the roof, and the request was approved only weeks later.

“We were praying it would work out. We had good expectations for it. It was one of those gracious things that didn’t take long at all,” Rabon said.

The roof repairs are slated to start in the next couple of weeks, according to Rabon. He said it’s sort of taken a back seat due to all the rain Washington has seen recently, but he is hopeful the repairs will be completed quickly.

Rabon said the roof is not something that can be really fixed overnight, as it leaks in a new spot with each rainfall. For the past four years, it’s been a quick, temporary fix — Rabon said the spot would just get patched up each time.

“A spot will leak somewhere and the next time it rains it will leak somewhere else. The guy that’s been doing the repairs would just patch up the spot every time,” Rabon said. “We’ve been putting this little Band-Aid on it, and now we are doing something to fix it permanently.”

Rabon said he and his team are excited to finally have a permanent fix.

“We are real excited. Every time it does this, were not sure where it’s going to leak. We lose merchandise. We lose ceiling tiles. The carpet stained where it leaks from,” he said.

The roof repairs could potentially just be the beginning of a slew of repairs at the Washington building — Rabon said he is hoping to remodel the whole store in 2018.

“The summer isn’t the best time for fundraising mainly because everybody is going on vacation, but hopefully we’ll get that store remodeled in 2018,” Rabon said.

The Salvation Army of Washington is located at 112 E. Seventh St., Washington.