“Merry Christmas!” the team calls to everyone who walks by. The customers, some carts full and some empty, offer smiles, kind words, and often donations. The team is volunteering for the Salvation Army’s annual red kettle campaign.
The Salvation Army’s red kettle campaign is a staple of the holiday season, and locally that means a lot of fun hours of volunteering for the !mpact/Aktion team. The team volunteers at various sites and with many local organizations throughout the year, including the Salvation Army’s daily lunch program, but the red kettle campaign is the biggest fundraising event the !mpact/Aktion crew undertakes.
As of Wednesday, the team had gathered $10,454 in donations by offering smiles, holiday wishes, and ringing the bells at the Portsmouth Kroger. This year, two crews from the club manned the kettles and bells at the store at both the entrance and exit – and customers seem to love them, said Aktion Club Advisor KC Chatfield.
The final amount raised in this year’s efforts was more than $13,500.