Two charity-based organizations that serve the public interest will be working out of Viking’s former Civic Building.

The building used to house the town’s administration and council chambers upstairs, and the Viking Library downstairs, but both moved to the Viking Carena Complex.

Beaver Emergency Services Commission was housed in the building until moving to a new building adjacent to it, along with the local Viking/Beaver FCSS and the Food Bank.

Finding a use for the empty, but still functional building, was an issue for the town and some of its residents, who didn’t want to see it fall into disrepair.

But now the Mission to Many has announced that it will be taking over the top floor of the Civic Building. It will be joining the town’s thrift store, called New To You, which is housed in the downstairs portion of the building.

It all happened fairly quickly after the New to You board decided to make the move in December. Moving from the older building on main street took all of January.

New to You just held its grand opening last week, celebrating by keeping their doors open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

Reagan Josephison, Mission to Many’s Communication Chair, said the organization will soon be taking over the top floor of the Civic Building.

“The room that used to be for conferences will be our display room where the public can shop, and the old town office will be where we sort, clean, and price items,” she said.

“We accept donations of kitchen items, toys, home decor, and sometimes furniture (with prior arrangements). We have always passed donations of clothing to the New to You and will continue to do so.”

Being in the same building will make working together with New to You easier.

“In the future we are hoping to be open the same two days a week as New to You, Tuesdays and Thursdays,” she said. “But as we get organized that may only be one day.”

Traditionally, Mission to Many has accepted donations of new and gently used items for the purpose of their annual Gigantic Garage Sale.

If anyone is interested in joining Mission to Many volunteers, they can email missiontomany@gmail.com or reach out to one of the members.

And there will soon be two separate labelled drop-off boxes outside the civic building that indicate where to place donations. Anyone wanting to drop off items in the meantime can call Sandy at 336-1022.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY in this week’s edition of The Weekly Review on newsstands now, or buy the single issue online below:

Print is still the most effective medium. Attract LOCAL customers by supporting LOCAL media.

ADVERTISE!

ads@weeklyreview.ca

Patricia Harcourt
Editor