Worthington to be home to new Goodwill Industries retail store

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WORTHINGTON — Goodwill Industries-Wall Street Mission will break ground on an 11,000-square-foot facility and retail store later this month between Fareway Foods and Tractor Supply Company on Ryan’s Road in Worthington.

At this point, company officials are planning for a late-April or May opening.

Viilay Keokenchanh, chief operating officer of Goodwill Industries-Wall Street Mission, said the decision to open a store in Worthington was made about two years ago, and the time since then has been spent on finding the right site in the community.

“We have an Ambassador program in Worthington, and we always bring our trucks there,” Keokenchanh said. “Every time we pull up our Ambassador Trailer, it gets filled the same day or the following day, and then we have to bring another trailer for people to have a chance to donate.

“If there’s an indicator, that tells me the community supports Goodwill,” he added.

Worthington will be the home to Goodwill Industries-Wall Street Mission’s 20th retail site. The local territory, based in Sioux City, Iowa, includes all of South Dakota, southwest Minnesota, a large share of western and central Iowa and northeast Nebraska.

“We are, geographically, the largest territory,” Keokenchanh said. “We cover about 115,000 square miles.”

The Worthington site is expected to employ 12 to 15 people. More than half of the building’s space will consist of a retail store, with ample room for collection, sorting and tagging items.

“Once we get our store up and running, we’ll offer convenient drive-through, drop-off locations,” Keokenchanh said. “They don’t even have to get out of their car.”

The retail area will be filled with “great, quality products at a low price,” he added.

One thing the Worthington site will also offer is an employment center. Goodwill will have two or three computers in an area of the store where people can do employment searches.

“People down on their luck who don’t have a means for searching for a job online can come in, the computers will be accessible during store hours. They can search and apply for jobs online,” Keokenchanh said. “Our No. 1 mission is to help people with barriers find employment.”

Employment centers are also in one Goodwill store in Sioux Falls, Watertown, Aberdeen and Mitchell, S.D., and Sioux City, Iowa.

“This directly connects the mission and the retail together, in one location,” Keokenchanh added.

Groundbreaking for the new Goodwill Industries retail store in Worthington is slated for 10 a.m. Nov. 29 at the site.

Daily Globe Reporter Julie Buntjer may be reached at 376-7330.

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