Salvation Army grateful for ongoing community support
The Salvation Army in Swift Current had another successful Christmas campaign that provided support to families through the distribution of food hampers and raised nearly $200,000 to enable the organization to continue its work in the community.
“I'm very positive,” Major Don Grad said about the campaign's outcome. “We are quite pleased with how we continue to get such wonderful support, both in terms of volunteers and funds. We had an amazing turnout of volunteers doing everything from sorting food to packing hampers to the volunteers who actually helped on hamper distribution day and took the boxes out to the cars. Seeing people come together and work and help out to do what we do I think is just a great expression of the community spirit that exists in Swift Current.”
A large number of volunteers helped out during the campaign. The process to sort donated food items and prepare hampers required a lot of helping hands and about 100 volunteers were involved with that.
The campaign distributed 272 hampers along with 16 adopt-a-family hampers. These numbers were similar to the hampers that were prepared in the previous two years.
“The last two years were running at about the 270 mark and about 12 or so adopt-a-family,” he noted. “So our numbers are similar over the last two or three years in terms of actual hampers. We have had a change in that we didn't see some names and then we also noticed some new names.”
A couple of individuals who previously received Christmas hampers approached the Salvation Army to find out how they can support the campaign.
“They were back on their feet and they really appreciate the Christmas hampers in a whole new way, and they have been supporting us before, but they came back and said they'd like to know how they can continue to support,” he said. “So I'd like to hope that the names that we didn't see have a similar situation where things have gotten back on track for them and that maybe some of the new names we saw will only be a year or two and they will be back on track.”
The Salvation Army hosted a Christmas Day dinner that was attended by around 150 people and about 50 volunteers provided assistance to prepare and serve the meal.
“It is always nice to be able to come together as a community,” he said. “Many of the folks were there because they didn't want to spend Christmas dinner alone. They came out to the meal and they got to talk with some friends and to socialize, and so to me that's sort of a multi functional approach to the dinner in the sense that it's a community thing. It helps people in low income, but it helps a lot of people who might otherwise just be lonely.”
The Salvation Army also hosted an appreciation luncheon on Dec. 11 for residents of Hutterite colonies , which was attended by about 120 people.
“To me it's always so nice to say thank you to this group that helps us all year round with literally thousands of pounds of food, which gives us fresh veggies and such to be able to put into the hampers,” he said.
He added that the Salvation Army appreciates the support of many other groups, such as the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association, that supports the food bank during the year.
Another highlight of the 2018 Christmas campaign was the nighttime arrival of the CP Holiday Train in Swift Current, which attracted a large crowd. People showed their support for the Salvation Army at the event with over 1,000 pounds of food donations and $1,447 in the kettle. Major Grad was on the stage to accept a cheque of $5,500 from CP representatives.
“That's always kind of fun to be on stage and to see just the size of the crowd, and again to me it's a sense of community spirit as people come together to enjoy an evening and to enjoy an event,” he said.
The Salvation Army kettles were out in the community during the Christmas campaign and over 200 volunteers signed up for shifts. The kettles were at five locations in the city and they used 25 volunteers per day for about 20 days.
The Christmas campaign raised $196,116 and that amount might still change as some final donations are received.
“I'm thinking by the time we get a few more cheques in the mail, we'll probably hit about the $200,000 mark, which is really wonderful,” he said. “I know this has been a bit of a tough year agriculturally in terms of volume of bushels and so to get that type of support is still exciting.”
The campaign goal was to raise $220,000. This amount was based on their operating budget for 2019, but Major Grad expected the fundraising shortfall will not result in any changes to the Salvation Army's activities in Swift Current.
“We've exceeded our campaign totals in some years and so it's like being a good farmer,” he said. “In the good years you put a little extra under the mattress and in the bad years you pull the money out from the mattress and the Army is no different. We don't sort of put all the money in a bank account and hold it there forever, but on a bit of a floating basis to be $20,000 short this year, we have some surplus left over from other years that we're able to use to cover that so that we anticipate our services will remain similar to past years.”
A lot of food items were used to fill the Christmas hampers, but due to generous donations from the community during the campaign the shelves at the food bank are still well stocked for the start of the new year.
“We don't want so say we don't need anything, because in two or three weeks we will of course, but right now as far as the food bank goes it's a nice feeling to know that not only did we have enough for the Christmas hampers, but support has been overflowing and the food bank is in a good position as we start 2019,” he said.
Major Grad emphasized the Salvation Army's gratitude towards the community for their ongoing support for the services provided by the organization.
“I always want to say thank you to the community for how they support us and the work we do,” he said. “It's because of that support we're able to do what we do, and going into 2019 we want to continue to be a community partner.”