Salvation Army

As the Christmas season is approaching many things are different, but the Salvation Army is still doing the most from the community of Duluth.

Things may not look exactly the same but the impact on the community couldn’t be more important during this time. Hand sanitizers, social distancing and no contact pickup have all been added to what Salvation Army is doing differently during the pandemic.

One big donation comes from the Red kettle project. The sound of a bell ringing as you walk into a grocery store has become almost tradition for the holidays. Duluth has three big spots for red kettles including Super one west Duluth, Super one burning tree road and Mount royal.

Getting people to volunteer this year has become difficult with the circumstances. Taking money from random strangers goes against a lot of what we have been taught during this pandemic.“ It has definitely become more difficult to find volunteers, which you can’t blame anyone for,” said Dan Williamson, Development director of the Salvation Army. Last year at the beginning of the Christmas season 74 percent of the volunteer spots were filled. This year only 14 percent of the volunteer spots were filled.

One of the big ways Salvation Army has been able to make up some of the money lost during Covid has been private donation. “ I’m blown away by the generosity of people’’ Williamson said. Online donations have increased as red kettle in person has decreased. The red kettle project alone has the goal to make 215,000 dollars this year. The total raised so far this year is 83,824.38 dollars as of December 9, 2020.

Another big way people have been contributing is toy donation. This gives parents the opportunity to be able to go and pick up toys for their kids. Who usually would not be able to provide a Christmas for their kids.

UMD sports have done multiple tory drives to bring in things for children and families in need. The most recent toy drive brought in a total of 404 items including 232 toy items, 83 mittens and 66 hats. It only lasted 4 hours. During this time people came driving through the UMD football parking lot to drop off. Willamson comes at the end of the day to collect all of the donations.

In those 4 hours 116 kids were able to be given a Christmas. Each parent is able to go in and pick two items for their child.

“The salvation army is so much more than just the red kettle project” said Willamson. This summer one of his favorite memories was a 7th grade boy who set up a project for scholarships for kids to play basketball.

Throughout the Christmas season much is down by the Salvation Army to contribute to the Duluth community and beyond.