Top End Salvos bringing much more than a BBQ to Bunnings partnership
BY KIRRALEE NICOLLE
Leaders at a corps in the Northern Territory have taken a creative approach to fundraising and community engagement through a thriving partnership with
Bunnings.
The Palmerston Corps, located south-east of the Darwin CBD, has built a strong, mutually beneficial pastoral relationship with the Palmerston Bunnings home improvement store.
Corps Officers Captain Neil Gray and his wife, Major Sherrelee Gray, have booked their team for more than 40 Bunnings barbecues this year, with most scheduled for Fridays.
The team benefits greatly from this partnership, with the funds from the barbecues covering all the team’s ministry needs. But it isn’t just about the financial aspect. With Fridays being less busy than weekends, there is an additional benefit.
“They afford a much more relaxed approach to being able to talk with people over their sausage sizzle purchase,” Neil said. “We now have regular people from the general public who will swing by on a Friday to see if we’re there.”
Previously, the schedule was even more hectic, with every Friday dedicated to cooking sausages. Sherrelee insisted the team take a break one Friday a month to avoid burnout. With this plan in place, the routine allows for strategic engagement with Bunnings staff and patrons.
“A lot of them [the barbecues] come at really opportune times,” Neil said. “Last year, we did three days before Christmas and three days after, which gave us a huge presence in the community at a time when we were talking about Jesus.
“We continue to be really blessed by that whole arrangement where we have such a warm, healthy connection with Bunnings, and they’re really happy to have us there.”
But it wasn’t just about chatting. The food on offer was important too. Neil said the team had “professionalised the barbecue side of things”.
Read more: Meet the Officer – Captain Neil Gray
“We are consistently providing a really good sausage sandwich for people, which is really important when you’re there so often,” Neil said. “We’ve got this reputation now of cooking a really good barbecue [and] being available for a chat and a conversation.”
Neil said they had also established a staff discount, allowing Bunnings staff to purchase at half price.
“That’s become a real positive thing for the staff,” Neil said. “They’re really appreciative of that, and the amount of connections we’ve been able to make that have led to referrals to services or just a pastoral chat where we can offer some insight or reflection on a situation [is huge].”
The team has also given out “probably half a dozen” Bibles.
“We’ll have staff come down and ask if they can get a Bible from us,” he said. “So the next time we’re wandering in to do a barbecue, we’re taking a Bible with us and awkwardly looking for that staff member before the day gets too busy.
“Things we would never have dreamed would come of it, they’ve really become the important aspects of it.”
Patricia*, a Bunnings employee, said the Palmerston Salvos had been “incredibly supportive in many ways”. She said that, at her granddaughter’s request, Neil and Sherrelee bought her granddaughter a beautiful leather-bound Bible, which is now being read “religiously”. She said the pair also provided information about local youth services and offered to assist the family with any additional needs.
“They’ve been quite helpful,” she said. “They’ve been there to have a chat with me when needed.”
Nicole Currey, another employee at the store, said Neil and Sherrelee's team were a “warm, welcoming, and friendly” presence at the store, always happy to see everyone. She said she had bought them each a Bunnings bear as a way to give something back.
“They’re just so nice,” she said. “I’ve never seen them have a bad word to anybody. They’re just lovely, and they remember people. I just really reckon they’re awesome.”
She said that when she started at the store last year, she felt very nervous, but felt reassured that with Neil and Sherrelee around, there was always somebody who would be happy to see her.
“They just always made me feel welcome, so that made my start there easier,” Nicole said.
She also said they had “the best sausage sizzle”.
“I’m a bit of a connoisseur with sausage sizzles now!” she said.
‘Community of Faith’ gathering As a follow-up to the connections the team makes at Bunnings and elsewhere in town, they have also established a Community of Faith gathering on a Tuesday evening. Neil said, as a matter of coincidence, that it now falls into the same category as a recovery church model.
Through collaboration with TSA’s Sunrise Centre Drug and Alcohol program, the team became aware that there was little in the way of a bridge back to either homelessness services or independent living after clients had completed the program.
“Even though that wasn't our intent, and I think we really just wanted to launch a community of faith activity that just honoured connection and relationship and was really easy to access for people who didn't have a church history, that came about largely as our collaboration with alcohol and other drugs and homelessness increased,” Neil said. “There was a bit of a cliff face for [clients], and there was no real continuity of engagement.”
“So that brought us to thinking about what that would look like, and from that we came up with this concept of a Community of Faith meeting that was held over a meal. [We’re] certainly not breaking any new ground, but just working on a model that we put into practice when we were at St Kilda many moons ago, running a chapel outreach there. And yeah, basically, we just launched that model here.”
The Community of Faith meetings now attract an average of about 25 attendees each week, and through the Bunnings roster, the team can fully fund this venture from the proceeds. This means the team doesn’t need to take up an offering at church services, and attendees can simply participate without any expectation.
“With our Bunnings collaboration, we have found that we can be pretty much whatever we set our hearts to or whatever God’s placing on our hearts. It’s been the rarest of occasions where we’ve looked in the bank and found that we can’t do it because of money.”
“The capacity that we’ve got through Bunnings to support and fund a lot of our ministry ideas has been amazing.”
*Not her real name
