Family store opens the door to affordability
Family store opens the door to affordability
8 June 2022
Cairns Corps Officer Ben Johnson with Violet Taulanga (Council Community Development officer), David Adams (from Bynoe) and Mayor Kyle Yanner.
In an isolated Far North Queensland community where the cost of living is staggeringly high, the Mornington Island Family Store is already making a positive difference less than a month after opening, according to Cairns Corps Officer Major Ben Johnson.
“What we are doing is a very simple thing, but it’s already changing the community,” Ben said.
Mornington Island is 50 minutes flying time from Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The only available transport to and from the mainland is by aeroplane, making it expensive for residents to shop.
At $2 per item, clothing and kitchen items suddenly become affordable and provide competition to other local stores to moderate their pricing.
Mornington Shire Council is one of the project partners, and Mayor Kyle Yanner says The Salvation Army-run store is warmly welcomed. “You only need to look at the cost of our basic grocery items compared to that on the mainland and in the bigger cities to appreciate the toll that this alone takes on our people. We hope the opening of the store can play a part in starting to ease some of the pressure our community faces every day,” he said.
Ben said the store generated about $1400 per day in the opening few days, demonstrating it is meeting a critical need. The store opens for five hours each Tuesday and Thursday, but these hours may be extended in response to demand.
“Our stores in this area are more than retail stores but community enterprises,” Ben said. “[We offer] reasonably priced goods to those who need it most. When we deliver, it gives a sense of hope that they aren’t left behind and they can get ahead.”
The Mornington store offers some locals employment, and any profits are reinvested in the community as determined by the working group represented by each of the partners in the joint venture.
The Salvation Army provides goods and training. Bynoe Community Advancement Co-operative Society (CACS) provides the shopfront rent-free and support for the workers. Mornington Shire Council provides recruitment support, and a community member is also on the working group to ensure a predominantly local direction.
Bynoe CACS approached The Salvation Army about two years ago requesting help to address the cost of living in remote communities. Ben wrote a project proposal as part of his Masters of Global Development course, using his learning to establish a social enterprise specifically for Indigenous communities.
The project received funding from The Salvation Army Indigenous ministry department; in 2020, The Salvation Army made grants available to mission expressions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ministry projects. This program aims to fund projects that address hardship or injustice for our First Nations peoples and supports the Army’s Reconciliation Action Plan.
Goods are collected on the mainland and transported to The Salvation Army warehouse in the Normanton township as the distribution centre to Mornington Island and surrounding areas. Normanton warehouse has been operating for three months as a shopfront.
“The social enterprise model involves partnering with locally established organisations, providing goods at affordable prices and developing other support services such as SalConnect (emergency relief) and financial counselling,” Ben explained. Future plans include pop-up stores in nearby communities of Burketown and Doomadgee.
“We had to get innovative in the way we do things, how we support workers remotely – some of whom speak English as a third language – integrate processes between the different organisations and be culturally safe,” Ben said. “It’s not an easy place to live in but has an amazing beauty in all sorts of different ways.”
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