A Christmas miracle came to the Jacksonville Salvation Army on Tuesday.
The annual red Kettle Campaign officially ended on Tuesday ahead of its $150,000 goal.
Captain Chris Clarke says an anonymous donor came through at the last minute: “The amazing thing is on Monday, a day before the campaign ended, we got a call from a very generous donor, a friend of the Salvation Army. They asked how much we were short. It was almost $8,000 at that point. They actually wrote us a check right down to the penny of what we needed on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, which was the last day of the campaign, we receive some more checks. We were actually able to exceed our goal by a little over $4,400.”
Clarke says the next thing to do is to the cede that money into the Jacksonville Salvation Army’s programs: “That money is used all year long for our many programs including our food program, our Free Lunch program, as well as our food pantry that sees as many as 70 families a day, helping people with shelter. We currently have 10 families in shelter using area motels. These are people who don’t qualify or wouldn’t be a good fit for them to go to New Directions for shelter there. We help people all year long with different things like utilities, housing, clothing, personal care needs, and so many different things. Really, we are just trying to help people in their emergency need. This next year we are excited to start our Pathway of Hope program, which is for people who are willing and able to get the help through some intense case management to move them along from where they are at to a more self-sustaining situation.”
Clarke says the Salvation Army is grateful to all the donors and bell ringers during this year’s campaign. 153 volunteers donated nearly 14,000 hours of service to reach the 2022 Christmas campaign goal.