52nd year Salvation Army, Daily Times are partnering
Fundraising goal is $50,000
CHESTER » Below The Associated Press coverage of the D.B. Cooper skyjacking, a headline in the Nov. 25, 1971, the Daily Times asked “won’t you help the less fortunate?”
The philanthropic challenge to readers kicked off the inaugural Merry Christmas Fund, a partnership between the Times and the Salvation Army Chester Corps to help county residents in need.
While the FBI suspended investigation into the unsolved airline hijacking in 2016 with Cooper’s true identity remaining unknown, another piece of 1970s infamy has returned and was easy to identify heading into the 52nd Merry Christmas Fund drive.
“Inflation is affecting all of us. The problem is that everything goes up except donations. Donors will give the same amount or give less because they’re affected,” said Major Kathleen Calvo of the Chester Corps. “Despite that, we have great confidence in our donors, because they always come through. They continue supporting the work of the Salvation Army and other organizations and want to help their neighbors.”
Calvo has again set the goal for the 2022 drive at $50,000.
Funds raised will support food and toy distribution to area families during the week of Christmas.
The fund crested over the 80 percent mark in 2020 with a tally of $43,937 before slipping 26 percent to a $32,600 finish in 2021.
“We were in the first year of the pandemic and I think people just felt that urgency to help,” said Calvo of the 2020 rally, which marked the first year that she and her husband, fellow Major Joaquin Calvo, took leadership of the Chester Corps. Their first year also saw a $10,000 corporate donation that did not repeat in 2021.
The Merry Christmas Fund helps the corps both with its food and toy distribution to families in need during the holiday season and with stretching its general operating budget throughout the year. The fund will aid a minimum of 500 families this year, Kathleen Calvo estimated.
The Corps supported about 500 families last year, which was a 15 percent uptick after the Darby Corps’ closure that September. Calvo estimated about 2,000 toys and articles of clothing were distributed last year.
While the total number of families may stay flat to 2021, the beneficiaries themselves will see some changes.
“As we’re doing the applications for the toys, people are saying ‘you know what? We don’t need it this year.’ I say ‘good for you, that’s great.’ People are in a better place and that’s our whole goal: to get them in a better place,” Calvo said.
Those instances have been offset by a rise in new applicants, which Calvo suspects is due to current economic impacts combined with lingering pandemic effects as many grandparents and other relatives have taken in young children due to parents’ death or incarceration.
Elsewhere in the corps, the Merry Christmas Fund helped stretch the budget to bring back many year-round activities that had been suspended due to lockdown restrictions.
This year, the Chester Corps sent youth and senior citizen groups to the Salvation Army Camp Ladore in the Poconos, and welcomed back
“Inflation is affecting all of us. The problem is that everything goes up except donations. Donors will give the same amount or give less because they’re affected. Despite that, we have great confidence in our donors, because they always come through. They continue supporting the work of the Salvation Army and other organizations and want to help their neighbors.”
— Major Kathleen Calvo of the Chester Corps
The Merry Christmas Fund helps the corps both with its food and toy distribution to families in need during the holiday season and with stretching its general operating budget throughout the year. The fund will aid a minimum of 500 families this year, Kathleen Calvo estimated.
Chester Biddy League basketball to its gymnasium space.
The holiday donations also freed up general funds for the pantry and emergency food package program, and the corps shelter’s 2022 Thanksgiving dinner, which will return to its traditional sit-down format this year.
Besides donations helping programming through the year, Calvo wished to remind readers of the impact their gifts have on recipients throughout the year and beyond.
She recounted an early November conversion with a grandmother who first applied for toys in 2021 after taking in her grandchildren and still adjusting to the new financial realities. The woman could not bear the notion of the children not receiving gifts for Christmas after the recent personal tumult.
“She was crying on the phone, ‘you have no idea how you provided Christmas for the kids,’ ” said Calvo.
“If you have a lousy Christmas or a lousy holiday season, that affects the rest of your life. You can hear full-grown adults talking about something that happened to them when they were 8 years old,” said Calvo.
The grandmother told Calvo that the children had a far better year in 2022, starting with the personal uplift of Christmas 2021.
“We were able to help her and she said it changed everything for them. I think donors need to know that. They can change someone’s outlook just by writing a check or putting some money in a bucket,” Calvo said.