It’s a tale of two cities when it comes to donations taken in so far for the Salvation Army’s Christmas Kettle Campaigns.
In Quesnel Major, Randy Gatza said they’ve already surpassed their goal.
“$22,800 roughly is where we’re at with the kettles right now, but our letter appeal is doing really well. We have over $77,300 in that so in total we have over $100,000 so far so we’re already surpassing our budgeted objective of $90,000 total”.
Gatza added that with COVID back in March they’ve received a lot of donations specified for food and so this time of year their main thrust for the Christmas Campaign is to raise money to help with the other operational costs.
Gatza said over the last several weeks they’ve had a higher than usual amount of people coming to the Salvation Army which included a higher number of seniors coming to them which they are not used to getting.
In Williams Lake Tamara Robinson, Family Services and Community Outreach Director said they haven’t reached their goal of seventy-two thousand dollars yet, but the total to date makes her hopeful they will.
“So we’re at $51,000 as of last night (Monday, December 21) so we’re still a little bit off but we’re looking much better than we were”.
Robinson said this year’s goal for their Kettle Campaign is $72,000 which will directly fund their Family Services which is their Food Bank Services, Drop-in Centre, Soup Kitchen, Addiction Service, and everything in between that they provide.
Both Salvation Army Kettle Campaigns in Williams Lake and Quesnel will continue until noon Christmas eve day.