Shadow Chancellor visits Kettering’s Salvation Army church and hi-tech recycling centre
Image credits left to right: John Webb (Kettering Site Manager, SATCoL), Rachel Reeves MP, Kevin Dare (Finance Director, SATCoL), Major Nigel Govier (Commanding Officer, Kettering Citadel), Majonne Frost (Head of Environment & Sustainability, SATCoL).
When Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves MP, visited Kettering recently she ‘dropped in’ at the local Salvation Army church as well as the textile recycling centre operated by the charity’s trading company.
She has personal links with The Salvation Army in Kettering, her grandparents and father having been members. As a child, in school holidays she often stayed with her grandparents, attended the church and “helped Grandma volunteer in its charity shop just down the corridor,” she recalled, adding: “I learned many important values from my grandparents and dad.”
The Shadow Minister was hosted by Major Nigel Govier, commanding officer of Kettering Citadel, and she was encouraged to hear some of the ways the church is serving the local community. Its food bank has seen demand for food parcels double in the past two years, now regularly supporting 60 adults and children. On two mornings a week breakfasts are provided to those who are isolated, vulnerable and in need. A lunch club every Friday caters for 35 elderly people.
This all endorsed her opinion that “Salvationists are very principled, caring people”.
Her father’s cousin Stuart Ogilvie and his wife, Janet, are still very committed members of the Kettering church. They had an opportunity to share some family photos with Rachel, particularly of dad Graham among the young boys in the brass band of the 1960s. “He wasn’t a happy chappie,” laughed Janet, “because he was at the end of the tenor horn players and Stuart was at the top!”
The Shadow Chancellor said: “It was wonderful to be back in Kettering where I spent so much time during my school holidays with The Salvation Army, and to see the amazing work that they continue to do at the Citadel and now at the new innovative recycling centre.”
She spent time learning about the huge investment made into recycling textiles by the charity’s trading arm, SATCoL (The Salvation Army Trading Company Ltd). She saw how the recycling business use a technology called ‘Fibersort’, which automatically sorts garments by fibre type. The business sorts and processes 65,000 tonnes of donated textiles every year.
The recycling centre has also just announced a world-first in seeking to further reduce textile waste. Project Re:claim – a joint venture between leading corporate wear specialists Project Plan B and SATCoL – has successfully recycled polyester textiles back into raw material using new technology.
Project Plan B developed the exclusive polyester recycling system which is based on plastic bottle recycling. The Salvation Army Trading Company will install the machine at one of its processing centres in September 2023.