Round up your change at checkout and help support the Salvation Army.
Price Chopper/Market 32 will match all donations, up to $5,000.
This holiday season, The Salvation Army expects to see a greater need for our services – more than any in recent history.
Unemployment rates are expected to be 10%-11%, and based on the increased service we’ve already provided this year due to COVID-19, we need resources to serve up to 155% more people with Christmas assistance.
COVID-19 has not only created a bigger need for us to fill, it has also decreased the number of traditional red kettles you’re used to seeing on street corners and at store entrances each Christmas season. In fact, we could see up to a 50% decrease in red kettle funds this year due to several factors, including:
- Consumers carrying less cash and fewer coins
- More online shopping, which means less foot traffic in shopping areas
- Unemployment rates
- Recent closures of some brick-and-mortar retail stores
For more information visit, www.salvationarmyusa.org
Salvation Army Bell Ringers needed for the holidays!
2 hour shifts available!
Ring the bell for the Salvation Army Kettle Campaign. From families in need, to people recovering from addiction, to veterans and the homeless, you’ll be supporting programs that change lives year-round.
To volunteer, visit
https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/volunteer/
Red Kettle History
In 1891, Salvation Army Captain Joseph McFee was distraught because so many poor individuals in San Francisco were going hungry. During the holiday season, he resolved to provide a free Christmas dinner for the destitute and poverty-stricken. He only had one major hurdle to overcome — funding the project.
Where would the money come from, he wondered. He lay awake nights, worrying, thinking, praying about how he could find the funds to fulfill his commitment of feeding 1,000 of the city’s poorest individuals on Christmas Day. As he pondered the issue, his thoughts drifted back to his sailor days in Liverpool, England. He remembered how at Stage Landing, where the boats came in, there was a large, iron kettle called “Simpson’s Pot” into which passers-by tossed a coin or two to help the poor.
The next day Captain McFee placed a similar pot at the Oakland Ferry Landing at the foot of Market Street. Beside the pot, he placed a sign that read, “Keep the Pot Boiling.” He soon had the money to see that the needy people were properly fed at Christmas.
Six years later, the kettle idea spread from the west coast to the Boston area. That year, the combined effort nationwide resulted in 150,000 Christmas dinners for the needy. In 1901, kettle contributions in New York City provided funds for the first mammoth sit-down dinner in Madison Square Garden, a custom that continued for many years. Today in the U.S., The Salvation Army assists more than four-and-a-half million people during the Thanksgiving and Christmas time periods.
Captain McFee’s kettle idea launched a tradition that has spread not only throughout the United States, but all across the world. Kettles are now used in such distant lands as Korea, Japan, Chile and many European countries. Everywhere, public contributions to Salvation Army kettles enable the organization to continue its year-round efforts at helping those who would otherwise be forgotten.