Salvation Army campaign gets underway this weekend

MASON CITY — The Mason City Salvation Army starts its annual Christmas Red Kettle Campaign this weekend, and the organization is searching for people who want to man kettle sites through the holiday season.

Captain Kenyon Sivels says there’s an easy way now to sign up if you want to be a volunteer by heading to the website registertoring.com.  “Go on there, fill out your profile, it takes just a couple minutes, and then from the comfort of your home, your office, wherever you’re at, you can look and see, ‘okay I’m free on this day, at this time, what are the available locations’, for this amount of hours or what have you. You do your profile just once and then you can select as many locations as many times to fill as you’d like.”

Sivels says this year’s kettle campaign goal is slightly higher than what people donated last year.  He says last year’s goal was $95,000, with the Salvation Army bringing in more than $96,000. This year’s goal is $97,000. “I have no doubt in my mind that the folks in north-central Iowa will step up.”

Sivels says the money raised by the overall Christmas campaign is used year-round.  “We help folks keep their heat on, but those are funds that also help folks to keep their air on when it’s not snowing, when it’s 95 degrees, and maybe as unbearable to live sustained in that as it is in the cold. Obviously people have done it, people do it, the Salvation Army is there to help try to prevent people from needing to do it.”

If you have any questions about the campaign, you can contact the Salvation Army at 424-4031, and once again that website if you want to sign up and man a kettle site, head to registertoring.com.