With just over a week to go in their 2017 Christmas Kettle campaign, the Salvation Army is in urgent need of donations.

This year, the Army set a goal to raise $1.25 million to support their programs through the year ahead.  That includes things like the women's shelter, back to school supplies, job search and other programs.  

The Salvation Army's Lieutenant Colonel Larry Martin says while it's not unusual to have a shortfall looming this close to Christmas, the amount is quite surprising.

"We're down quite considerably.  Sometimes it's difficult to be exact.  Overall our campaign this year is for $1.25 million but we're only about half a million at the moment so we're about $600,000 short of our goal so far.  If you compare it to last year, we'd be down over $100,000 to the same point in time, but in terms of reaching our goal we're down over $600,000." 

The biggest obstacle standing in the way of reaching the goal according to Martin, maybe the lack of volunteers needed to man the kettles.

"We really have a shortfall in volunteers.  We have over 70 kettles in the Calgary area, including the Airdrie area.  In total, 55 percent of those shifts are filled, 45 percent are not.  I think that has a significant impact if we have locations where we would normally take in a good amount in the kettles, if the kettle is not able to be out then we lose that income."

The Christmas Kettle campaign runs until December 24th.  Anyone who wants to volunteer to help with the kennels can go to kettles@salvationarmy.com   or sign up online for a kettle location that works for you at tsacalgarykettles.com.

 

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