The Salvation Army has officially moved into the 21st century with its annual Kettle Campaign.  

After hearing from too many people that they no longer carried cash and therefore couldn't donate at the kettles which come out every December, The Salvation Army decided to make it possible to give with your debit or credit card.  Major Al Hoeft, the Division Secretary for Public Relations and Marketing with the Army explains.  

"We've been listening to our donors who have said, on a pretty consistent basis, 'oh, I don't carry cash,' or 'I wish I had some cash with me.'  What we've done is make those portable terminals available across the country at many of our kettle locations.  We had them in about 20 locations in the Calgary area.  Although it wasn't an overwhelming success, it certainly was enough of a success that we're going to consider it for next year and look at how that works."

Hoeft says about $25,000 was raised through the terminals which, as he says, is likely $25,000 that they wouldn't have received otherwise.  Hoeft believes, like everything that's new, the idea of the terminals will take some time to catch on.

Overall, Hoeft says the 2018 Kettle Campaign is looking like a success.

"So far, we're pushing $850,000 of our $1 million goal.  We're expecting to raise additional funds that will come in through our other means and once we have final numbers on those, we'll be able to declare our final totals.  We have our fillthekettle.com which adds into the Calgary total as well.  We're looking forward to hearing what that total is, last year it was a substantial number and if it brought us really close to our total and if it comes close to last year's it will get us close to the total again this year."

Hoeft says the money raised through the Kettle Campaign is vital to the Salvation Army which has become the largest non-governmental direct provider of social services in Canada.

"The work that is funded through the Kettle Campaign includes our Christmas work and the hamper program we do which includes over 7,000 children this year, but it also goes to support the work that we do throughout the community year round.  Whether that's hampers whether that's food support, whether that's feeding programs or programs in the community that support families and the needs that they have throughout the Calgary region.  At the end of the day, we really want to make sure that we're giving people hope and helping them to realize that they're supported by their community."

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