The Salvation Army is dealing with unexpected repairs after floor rot was found in its soup kitchen.
Major Norm Hamelin said Mount Arrowsmith Salvation Army was recently replacing its commercial dishwasher at the soup kitchen, located at 187 Alberni Hwy. in Parksville, when workers found some floor rot about 10 days ago.
The repairs, Hamelin said, will cost the Mount Arrowsmith Salvation Army “in excess of $12,000.”
Hamelin said he’s hopeful the repairs will be completed within another week.
The repair work, he said, has shut down the kitchen for about a week. But it hasn’t stopped the Salvation Army from serving people at the soup kitchen.
“We’re not able to prepare anything on site, so we’ve had to partner with the (Parksville) legion and the fire hall to make the sandwiches,” Hamelin said.
In addition to the kitchen repairs, Hamelin said, the Salvation Army’s old dishwasher was stolen two nights ago (Feb. 28) He said the dishwasher was sitting on the soup kitchen’s back step when it was stolen, adding the Salvation Army has reported the theft to the RCMP.
“We had purposely bought the same model so we would have usable parts. Somebody lifted our old dishwasher,” Hamelin said. “If anything went down on the new one, we’d have a reservoir of parts to pull from.”