The only true test of knowing the Christmas season has arrived is the presence of Salvation Army bell ringers in front of stores. This year they began on Friday, Nov. 16, and I’m proud to say that I was one of them.
In the past you could tell the Christmas season was here when stores brought out their Christmas merchandise and started playing Christmas music, or when people decorated the outsides of their homes with Christmas lights and decorations. But stores are now Christmas ready in September, and last time I checked September was still three months from Christmas. People are also decorating their houses right after Halloween, transforming their homes from night of the dead to season of the jolly.
The bell ringers, though, definitely signal the start of the Christmas season because they don’t start until it is appropriate for them to do so – the weekend before Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that shoppers count down to and the one non-shoppers fear.
Portage County has 13 Salvation Army collections sites, with two kettles at Wal-Mart in Plover, which helps make the store the No. 1 collection site in this county. Last year bell ringers collected more than $70,000. This money is used to help run the Salvation Army Hope Center at 1600 Briggs St. in Stevens Point, a shelter that costs $300,000 a year to run.
Bob Quam of the Salvation Army told me that the Hope Center helps shelter more than 600 men, women and children every year and that its 46-bed capacity is usually filled every night. The shelter serves 30,000 meals every year and meals are available to everyone, not just people spending the night at the shelter.
That’s a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of heads to put a roof over. For most of us, including myself, it’s difficult to imagine that so many people in Portage County need such assistance. We don’t see these people living on the streets as they may in larger cities, so it’s easy to assume the homeless problem affecting the nation isn’t a local problem. It is.
The good news is there are a lot of people willing to do something about it. To man the Salvation Army kettles during the Christmas season, more than 5,000 hours of manpower are needed, said Quam. This requires hundreds of volunteers.
During my bell-ringing experience, I was paired up with Bill Yudchitz, a Salvation Army Board member and a local architect, at the Copps Food Store on Church Street in Stevens Point. We rang our bells from 11 a.m. to noon, a time that might not usually be busy for a weekday but, due to the opening day of the gun-deer season the following day, was steady.
I quickly learned that bell ringing only requires several things – an ability to ring a bell (easy), an ability to smile and greet people (easy for me, maybe not so easy for people that idolize Scrooge) and an ability to thank people for their donation and wish them a merry Christmas or happy holidays or Festivus for the rest of us (see Seinfeld season 9) or whatever Christmas send-off you prefer. That’s it. Very simple.
Volunteer bell ringers actually get more in return, as I found out. I had a great conversation with Bill, although most bell ringers probably won’t get a partner. I also met a lot of people and saw others I already knew.
Best of all, I got to see the joy on little kids’ faces when they put money in the kettle. Every little kid that got some change from his or her parent was very happy to do so, a happiness that I will remember as I give my little boy change next time we go past a kettle.
In today’s age of plastic, many people don’t carry spare change. That’s okay because you don’t have to donate every time you pass a kettle. The majority of people don’t, and as a bell ringer I didn’t think any differently of those people than the people that did. It’s completely understandable. Just give when you’ve got it.
One gentleman told me he puts a quarter in every time he walks past a bell ringer. A quarter doesn’t sound like much, but this was already the second time he was going past a kettle that day, bringing his total to 50 cents. And 50 cents is a lot, especially for people without food on the table.
So whether or not you give a little a lot or a lot a little, in the end whatever amount you give will go a long way.
People interested in bell ringing or volunteering at the Hope Center should call the Salvation Army Corps at 342-1462 or the Hope Center at 341-2437.
Originally published in The Portage County Gazette in December 2007.
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