news-record.com

GREENSBORO — UNCG design students and Salvation Army officers may seem like odd partners.

One group studies to beautify homes and shopping centers. The other works to provide basic needs for those who might otherwise go without.

But that partnership created a plan to renovate the Salvation Army Family Store at 307 W. Lee St. , with design elements that will carry over into a new Salvation Army store being planned.

The participants gathered on Wednesday to announce the results of a design brainstorm: a plan for bright, inviting stores that use all of the space available and guide shoppers with bilingual signs.

The Family Store sells donated household items, apparel and furniture, using the proceeds to fund Greensboro’s Boys and Girls Clubs and Center of Hope.

The changes were “not for the sake of having a pretty store,” said Salvation Army Maj. Paul Egan , but because the store makes about $150,000 a year for the group’s mission.

“The Salvation Army is different than dealing with Lord & Taylor,” Egan said.

“We help people in the worst parts of their lives.... This project is going to directly affect that,” he said.

Debbie Nestvogel , a UNCG student who worked on the project, said her peers looked at the question: “How can we impact the community through design?”

For students more often asked to deal with gold-plated faucets than used clothing and appliances, the question was a challenge they readily took on, said Tommy Lambeth , chairman of the university’s department of interior architecture .

The group’s mission was to “make it better but still communicate the basic mission of the store,” Lambeth said. “This is a really good example of design in action that goes beyond that to the common good.”

In November, about 40 students, alumni and professors from the interior architecture department and the consumer, apparel and retail studies department volunteered their time for the project. They spent all night brainstorming design solutions to update and improve the Salvation Army store.

“The buzz that was created from that is still apparent in the students,” Lambeth said.

Contact Sonja Elmquist at 373-7090 or sonja.elmquist@news-record.com