Heather Wyke rings up Betty McGraw for her book purchase. McGraw frequents thrift stores looking for books and other “small treasures.” Once The Salvation Army Thrift Store on Second Street in Bend closes, McGraw will “really miss it.”

Bargain-hunters of Bend: At the end of July, there will be one fewer thrift store available for finding deals.

The Salvation Army in Bend announced Tuesday that it will close its thrift store, at 755 N.E. Second St., on July 31.

“In the last three or four months, it just wasn’t meeting the quota (of sales),” said Capt. John Tumey, the Salvation Army director in Bend. “We have to make a certain amount to cover the cost of employees, and it wasn’t meeting that.”

Tumey said the necessary amount of revenue the thrift store needed to survive was $600 per day, but that in recent months the store had sometimes failed to produce half that figure.

Once the building closes, The Salvation Army will continue to use it for other purposes, particularly for storage, and hopes to sell it after the holiday season.

But Tumey wants one thing to be clear: The thrift store might be closing its doors, but the rest of its services will remain intact. For example, The Salvation Army will still provide food boxes and help with rent.

The seven employees who work at the Salvation Army Thrift Store were informed Tuesday morning that the store would close. The store will stop accepting donations Saturday.

The organization, which is 109 years old, has had a foothold in Bend since the 1980s, and the thrift store had been serving the Bend area since 1992.

“We’re in a weird location,” Tumey said, referring to being set off the street. “It’s not a prime location, and that’s been one of the downfalls.”

There are at least seven other nonprofit thrift stores in the Bend area.

While The Salvation Army’s thrift store was seeing revenues of less than $600 per day, Goodwill Industries’ thrift store in Bend reported revenues of over $2.7 million in 2006, which translates into approximately $10,400 per day.

And St. Vincent de Paul’s thrift store is looking to remodel or move to a new location now that its 401 N.E. Second St. location, down the street from The Salvation Army’s thrift store, is averaging $1,500 per day in sales.

Revenues from thrift stores run by nonprofit corporations go toward paying employee wages and benefits and funding their social-service programs.

For other area thrift stores, The Salvation Army’s departure from the scene comes with mixed feelings.

“That would mean that there would be another avenue as far as donations coming in,” said Sheila Bruce, the director of retail services at St. Vincent de Paul’s thrift store in Bend. “We will have probably a little larger donation base now.”

In 2003, The Salvation Army shut its Bend shelters because of budget shortfalls, and due to recent gas price increases, the nonprofit has stopped handing out gas vouchers. But The Salvation Army’s youth programs and food donations continue to thrive.

The Salvation Army’s food box program, which provides food to people in need, gave out 323 boxes of food in June and 340 boxes in May. The program has seen an increase in demand in the past year.

Without the revenues from the thrift store, The Salvation Army expects that it will still be able to thrive in the community, using proceeds from its mail appeal program.

“With the community stepping up and giving us money, we’ll continue to grow stronger here,” Tumey said. “We’re closing one avenue, but we’re still in town. We’re not going anywhere.”