Every year, Christmas shoppers see those little red kettles from the Salvation Army. And while you may see it as a way to get rid of some change, all that spare change comes together to give a family a meal on Christmas.
The Salvation Army provided hampers in the past, but as of last year, they decided it was easier to give a ticket to Publics for the recipient to buy what they need. This year, that ticket is valued at $40. It may not seem like much, but District Coordinator Major Jonathon Kellman said they were barely able to raise enough for the 750 recipients.
Major Jonathon Kellman, District Commander, Salvation Army
"Today in different parts of the country, there are distributions going on from supermarkets connected with Publics so in Hattieville, in San Ignacio, in the three locations here in Belize City. People are registered and now they are receiving their vouchers today, normally we would have a big package but we found the price of the packaged items and then we partner with Publics to produce those items, people would go there and shop for that amount of money.
So this started out many years ago to give people a meal for Christmas but the package contains enough stuff that people could probably have a meal for one week. So we are happy once again to use this. It's really a work of faith because we have to try to raise the money with the people ringing the bells and some peo0ple get letters and this year has been going really, really slow so we barely managed to get in time to cover the cost of this distribution today so now we are hoping that the public will continue to support the kettles and those who have letters to continue to send in the donations."
Courtney Menzies:
"Has it been, you said it's slowing down, I assume a big part of this is because of COVID so how have you been managing during the pandemic?"
Major Jonathon Kellman, District Commander, Salvation Army
"It's been an act of faith and prayer and trust and hope basically because everybody is struggling so we know that some of them can' contribute as they could have and some people have been given some items and therefore they try to keep that going with the people that come to the door every week, every week we have people come in and so I would say that if maybe you can't give money but if you are a merchandiser an you have stock you can't always send stock here even if it's little parcels because people come from the far districts hoping for something to carry home to help their families."
