Swift Current Salvation Army Christmas campaign achieves fundraising goal

The Salvation Army’s Christmas campaign in Swift Current overcame some challenges with help from the community to exceed the fundraising goal.

Swift Current Salvation Army corps officer Lieut. Renee Mailman said the outcome of the campaign was uncertain for a while, but ongoing support made it a success.

“For a while there, we weren’t sure,” she mentioned. “We had some staffing issues and that cold weather as well impacted some days when we had kettles, but overall our Christmas campaign exceeded its goal.”

The campaign raised over $243,000. This exceeded the overall fundraising goal with over $20,000. Both components of the Christmas campaign raised more funds than the initial target.

The kettle campaign had a target of $65,000 and the actual amount raised was $68,000. This success came despite some practical difficulties.

“We ended up running short on some staff throughout the Christmas season for various reasons and we weren’t able to dedicate as much time to recruiting volunteers,” she explained. “Some days we had to pull them earlier or put them out late. Then there was that cold snap that we had and it was difficult to find people. Even though the kettles were inside, some of the locations with the doors constantly opening got quite cold and we did have some difficulty filling some shifts.”

Good support from volunteers during the final stretch of the kettle campaign made up for those times when the kettles were not out at the five designated locations.

“Near the end we did have a number of volunteers who really came through for us and took multiple shifts in that last week,” she said. “We are so grateful for all of their support and dedication. Despite not having the kettles out as often as we would like, we still managed to raise $68,000 in the kettles, which is absolutely amazing.”

The goal of the mail-out campaign was to raise $160,000. The response to this appeal for a donation to the Salvation Army was really good and over $175,000 was raised. She noted that this usually happens every year and people will respond generously to the mailout campaign. The Christmas campaign is the largest fundraiser of the year for the Salvation Army and donations will support activities in Swift Current during the year.

“The funds raised throughout Christmas is what keeps us going throughout the year,” she said. “It enables us to maintain our building, to have staff to be able to do what we do, and this money helps us to continue to run our food bank throughout the year and other programs as well. Our community meal is run out of our building and things like that.”

The other activities of the Christmas campaign did not experience any shortage of volunteers to help out with different tasks.

“We did manage to recruit enough volunteers for the other aspects of Christmas,” she noted. “So our hamper packing and our distribution were able to find enough people.”

The Salvation Army provided close to 420 Christmas hampers, which represented an increase of about 50 applications compared to the previous year.

Each Christmas hamper included a grocery store gift card, a Christmas eve pack with popcorn and snack food and a toy from the wish tree, if a toy hamper was requested. Families also had an opportunity to shop at the toy store in the food bank for some extra items for children. The inclusion of a grocery store gift card in the hamper provided recipients more choice on the food they want for Christmas. Mailman felt this change was well received.

The adjustments to the size and format of the Christmas hamper happened in recent years in conjunction with keeping the regular food bank operation open during this period.

“Sometimes people are a little worried, because the Christmas hamper is only enough to provide that Christmas meal or a holiday meal,” she said. “It’s not a full food hamper and people sometimes still are a little bit concerned this isn’t enough, but it’s just for a meal. For people who require more than just the Christmas meal help, our food bank does remain open to assist them.”

The use of the food bank during the Christmas period remained consistent with the number of appointments before the holiday season. However, the overall use of the food bank has increased compared to a few years ago.

The number of appointments at food bank are now significantly higher than a few years ago. Instead of around 18 appointments a week, there are now up to 18 appointments a day for four days a week.

“I don’t know that I have a definitive answer,” she said about the reason for the increase. “I do think the COVID pandemic just changed everything in our world and there are still some people who are recovering from that. Things like the cost of living has increased and inflation. So you have people who were managing OK and then they’re not anymore when things increase even a little bit.”

She added that not everything is related to the pandemic and people’s circumstances can change for different reasons.

“We’ve had people come in who for various reasons are no longer able to work or their jobs don’t exist anymore,” she said. “We are seeing a need within our community.”

The Christmas campaign included a wish tree to collect toys for children. Over 400 children registered for toys, which was also an increase in comparison to the previous year.

“With the wish tree we had just wonderful members of our community who take a tag and buy a gift and return it,” she said. “So we couldn’t do it without them.”

The success of the wish tree was ensured when Cypress Motors, Standard Motors and Standard Dodge each donated $5,000 towards the purchase of toys.

“They covered the cost of the remaining tags and then of course Canadian Tire does toys days,” she said. “So anything that was still remaining at that point we were able to fill all the gaps and each child was able to receive more than one item.”

The Swift Current Broncos hosted their traditional Teddy Bear Toss Night at the Dec. 10 game, which collected over 1,200 items for the Salvation Army.

“We were able to hand out lots and lots of teddy bears and other stuffed animals,” she said.

“We also received hats and mitts through the Teddy Bear Toss. So we were able to hand those out as well.”

Mailman had no doubt about what she considered to be the highlight of the 2022 Christmas campaign in Swift Current.

“Every year the way this community comes together to support us and to support those that we help is just always so incredibly heartwarming to see,” she said. “We see a community that wants to give and make a difference. It’s just so amazing to be a part of that every year and it is such a privilege to be able to take what people give and to help those who need it. … As always, just a big thank you to this community for all that they did. We couldn’t do what we do without all the support that we receive.”