Kettle crusade takes off Salvation Army launches 2018 campaign

COEUR d’ALENE — The colors of the holiday season, red and green, were on vivid display Friday morning at the Kroc Center.

More green than red, turns out.

The Salvation Army’s legendary Red Kettle Campaign kicked off with a scrambled egg breakfast and a request to get some momentum going. With red bells adorning table tops, organizers announced that before the last biscuit was consumed, they hoped $20,000 could be raised.

That’s when the room turned green.

Salvation Army supporters quickly pitched in $36,736, almost doubling the kickoff goal. (A higher number was posted at the breakfast but later was reduced because a large gift had been entered twice.)

Leading the pack of benevolent boosters were Pepper and Midge Smock from the Windermere Foundation, bestowing $10,000 on the campaign.

The goal this year is to collect $261,000 in 38 days, with the money providing food, clothing and other forms of support locally. But emphasis was made Friday morning on another extremely valuable form of giving: Community members volunteering to ring those red bells and fill the Army’s red kettles.

“That would be an amazing feat for us,” said Salvation Army Maj. Don Gilger, referring to the goal of assembling an all-volunteer bell-ringing brigade.

While many bell ringers are volunteers, the Salvation Army also needs to hire people to brave the elements and fill the buckets. Finding workers is more daunting than usual; also Friday, the state reported unemployment at 2.7 percent, meaning that basically everybody who wants a job already has one.

Individuals, families, groups: If you’d like to ring a bell for a good local cause, sign up here: https://bit.ly/2OO3YJs

You can also call the kettle coordinator: 208-763-0647