Salvation Army Kettle Campaign now underway

(Seguin) — The bells are again ringing for this year’s Salvation Army Kettle Campaign, and there’s still time for you to volunteer.

The Seguin Area Unit of the Salvation Army hosts the Kettle Campaign each holiday season.

Salvation Army Board Member Tom Jones says they are again getting people signed up to ring the bells and man the kettles this holiday season.

“We are back in front of Walmart. So, we are covering both doors. I think there are some days that we are actually covering three doors but we’ve got both doors covered 9 to 9 daily except for Sunday and we are looking for volunteers. We want people to signup to ring the bells,” said Jones.

Jones says they’ve made it easy for people to volunteer this year.

He says all you have to do is go online and choose a time that’s convenient for you.

“The way in which you can register is registertoring.com and you can go on that website and register to ring. There will be a time slot in which you can signup for or if you jsut want to call our unit here in Seguin, you can call and they can also give you a time and set up a time to ring,” said Jones.

The bell ringing commitment is normally two hours, but Jones says there’s some flexibility when it comes to getting signed up.

  He says often time large groups come together to share a block of time. He says those filled slots makes it easier to get each door covered.

“We typically put them in two hour increments. However, as the chaplain at the hospital, I coordinate the bell ringing effort there at the hospital. We take one whole day and I encourage other companies to do the same thing. Take a whole day. What I have is I have so many employees at the hospital that I have broken it down to one hour. So, that means more people can ring the bells and we have a whole lot of fun. It’s typically two hours but you can pretty well do it as you like,” said Jones.

   Board Member Liz Hilsdof says ringing the bell doesn’t just help to raise money in support of the Salvation Army.

She says it’s also a lot of fun.

She says it’s meaningful volunteer work, and you never know what kind of donation will be dropped into those big red kettles each year.

“You hear the heartfelt stories. You see the stuff. You see the smiles and then you just know it’s all there and you find things in the kettle. We got a bracelet this last year that actually was from a woman that said ‘for the Salvation Army Red Kettle. I would like for this gold bracelet to be used to feed the children at Christmas. Thank you! Merry Christmas!” said Hilsdof.

Melissa Waters is the next executive director for the local Salvation Army Unit.

She says the money collected by the Salvation Army stays here in this community. She says they use it in a number of ways to help people here in Seguin and Guadalupe County.

She says it’s all about finding a way to help as many people as possible, and it all starts with people showing up to help support the Kettle Campaign.

“We give out those snack packs out to the homeless and sometimes they are not really truly homeless. They are just hungry. They are between jobs. They have been in a domestic situation. There is some reason that they can’t go home. There is some reason that they literally have no food. If we can give them something to kind of get them from point A to point B and community resources, it helps. It helps bridge that gap and that’s really what we are about. We can’t do everything and be all things to all people but what we can do is be that bridge to get them from where they are now to a better place,” said Waters.

Again, those who would like to volunteer for this year’s Kettle Campaign can sign up online at registertoring.com.

You can also signup by calling the office of the local unit at 830-401-4872.

Other opportunities to volunteer are also available by calling their office.

The Seguin Kettle Campaign officially started the day after Thanksgiving and will run through the Christmas holiday weekend in Seguin.