CHRISTMAS IN JULY
Salvation Army launches early recruitment drive for holiday bell ringers
The Salvation Army of Yuma and its supporters are launching a “Christmas in July” drive to recruit enough Red Kettle bellringers to avoid having to hire any for the upcoming holiday season.
Danny Bryant, an advisory board member and president of Pacesetter Homes, said he ended up on the board after he first started ringing the bell a few years ago and got hooked on the feelings and feedback he got out of it.
“You’ve got to do it. You can’t understand the feeling of facing all of those people during the holiday season, you’re trying to get them to slow down and smile, because everybody’s coming with a mission at the Christmas season, and we’re all running out of time,” he said.
“But if you can catch their face, especially if you have your kids or your grandkids with you, they stop and they smile, and for just a moment they get a little bit of the Christmas joy. And that is a great time, I call it therapy for the soul.”
But the number of people volunteering to do this has dwindled, both in Yuma and nationally, forcing the nonprofit’s chapters to hire some of the bell-ringers. Last season payroll costs consumed almost 30 percent of the money raised, and with Arizona’s new minimum-wage law that could reach 40 percent, Bryant said.
Total donations to the kettles last year fell about $40,000 short of the goal, to $106,000, said Lt. Tim Brown, Yuma County coordinator for the Salvation Army. About $31,000 of that went toward payroll. The rest covers the costs of other seasonal programs, and what’s left goes to other Salvation Army programs.
“This year we’re looking at ways to generate as many volunteers as possible so we can try to take some of that money back and actually help the public, and things like that,” he said.
He’s not sure how long it’s been since Yuma’s Salvation Army has been able to rely completely on volunteers. He said the paid bell-ringers generally are people who have a little time on their hands or need to make a little extra money for the season.
“By hiring people we are helping them in a way, but at the same time it does eat into a large amount of the money that would go toward helping people in real emergency situations,” he said.
He added that on average, volunteers garner more money from passersby than their paid counterparts.
“I don’t know why exactly, I think the volunteers are definitely doing it because the passion is there to help the organization. Sometimes people are just looking for a quick job to bring in some money and they know they’re going to be paid either way,” he said.
“I definitely think most of the ones who are volunteering are doing their best because they want to do something good for the community, and I think that comes across with those who see them,” he said.
Bryant said he talked about the issue with Yuma County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director John Courtis last week, and Courtis said he could ask chamber members to “sponsor” a kettle location for a day, or longer, taking responsibility for finding volunteers to cover it within their offices or beyond.
He’s hoping to foster some friendly rivalries, as well. “We want dentists’ offices competing against dentists’ offices, insurance companies competing against insurance companies. We want to see if we can get every one of these kettles somehow sponsored for a week. If we can get the businesses rallying behind this thing, it’ll be huge,” he said.
The organization of a team to lead these efforts has barely gotten underway, but both Bryant and Courtis say they’ve gotten a great response from everyone they’ve contacted so far.
“I like that we’re talking about this on July 19, and we want to make sure that when we have the opening at Yuma Palms mall in November, we’ve got all the businesses lined up and they’re sold out for bellringers,” Courtis said.
Bryant figures if the organization has the same 24 Red Kettle locations as last year, that adds up to a total of 104 six-day “ringing weeks” between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, so ideally there would be 104 businesses, school groups or other organizations to sponsor one of the sites, finding all the volunteers needed, or paying some ringers if needed.
That could be a big hill to climb, but he’s ready for it, emphasizing the fulfillment people receive not only by helping support current programs but hearing the stories of people “paying it forward” after getting help from the Salvation Army at some point in its 126-year history.
“That has reached so many people and the stories that you hear, about how the mom didn’t have food and the Army brought it to them Christmas season and the kids still remember that, and these kids are now in their 70s,” Bryant said.
Any organizations or individuals interested in participating in the Red Kettle campaign this holiday season can contact Bryant at (928) 246-5933 or dannyb1957@gmail.com, or Brown at (928) 783-0181.
Yuma Sun staff writer Blake Herzog can be reached at (928) 539-6856 or bherzog@yumasun.com.