Kettle gifts not boiling over

Friday, Jan. 9, 1998 | 10:29 a.m.

The Salvation Army's kettle drive for a fifth straight year took a nose dive, as Christmas revelers tossed less spare change -- $13,674 less -- into the pot last year than in 1996.

With just $173,332 collected from the kettles at 83 locations, the charitable agency is not sure it will be able to meet the needs for all of its programs this year. Its goal had been to raise $210,000 through the century-old Christmas bell-ringing tradition.

Even though the the kettle drive was down and the Las Vegas Salvation Army helped more poor people at Christmas than ever before, organization officials said Thursday that this past Yueltide season was successful as mail donations, in-kind gifts and food supplies were up.

"We did well considering that we have had a tremendous loss of kettle locations over the last few years," said Salvation Army spokesman Sumner Dodge, noting that just three years ago the organization had kettles at 148 locations around the valley.

In recent years, anti-vagrancy ordinances have been passed in places like the Fremont Street Experience, which have outlawed solicitations of all types, including the Salvation Army bell-ringers and other legitimate groups. Also, large corporations like malls have banned the kettles from inside the stores for liability and other reasons.

Before such ordinances and policies existed, the Salvation Army kettle drive collected a record $320,758 in 1992 and $275,610 in 1994. In 1996, the kettles took in $187,006, which was 8 percent better than this past year.

However, last month people put donations into the kettles at a much quicker rate than three years ago. The kettles collected $20.87 per hour in 1997 compared to $18.77 per hour in 1994, Dodge said.

This past year, a record 18,304 folks sought Christmas time help from the Salvation Army, ranging from food, to gifts, to shelter, Dodge said, noting that the old record, set in 1996, was 16,604.

Col. Jim Sullivan, director of the local Salvation Army, noted that while the kettle drive was down, the mail appeal was up by several thousand dollars, although official totals are not yet available.

"Overall, we are pleased with the response this past Christmas," he said. "The in-kind donations were double that of last year and that made a big difference for our Angel Tree program."

In December, a record 8,287 poor children were signed up for Angel Tree, a program where the names of needy kids are written on cards and put on trees at malls so that people can provide gifts for them. The old record set in 1996 was 7,967 children.

Dodge said, this past Christmas, there were 21,259 toy donations to the program compared to 10,859 in 1996. Donated articles of clothing climbed from 5,835 in 1996 to 10,649 this past Christmas.

Dodge and Sullivan credited a big chunk of the success to KTNV-TV Channel 13's 13 Days of Giving, which got gifts for 1,880 of the children, and the Marine Toys for Tots program, which helped provide gifts for 336 unselected Angel Tree kids.

Also, a record number of meals -- 2,550 -- were served to the poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The old record was 2,306 holiday meals served in 1996. The Christmas meal, sponsored by Kentucky Fried Chicken, served 1,050 people, breaking the Salvation Army's single-meal record, Dodge said.

The record for food vouchers also was broken in 1997, with 2,918 people receiving vouchers valued at greater than $75,000. The old record, again set in 1996, was 2,847 vouchers, Dodge said.

The holiday food drives resulted in 400,000 food items filling the Salvation Army warehouse. It shattered the old record of 250,000 items set in early January 1996.

However, Dodge noted that while 400,000 food items would have fed the area's poor for an entire year five years ago, the organization expects to run out of food by July.

"We are giving out 60,000 cans of food a month," Dodge said. "We used to see an average of 2,000 people a month in our family services. For the last four months, we have averaged 4,000 people a month."

Dodge noted that the government's cutbacks in welfare and other programs have created a larger class of working poor people, many of whom have turned to the Salvation Army and other charities for help they once received from the state.

"Many of these people have lost their welfare and have taken minimum wage jobs," Dodge said. "As low-income families they cannot meet all of their needs. It is only going to get worse. We believe that 1998 will be a difficult year."

In addition to a sharp increase in the number of working poor, homelessness also is still on the rise, Dodge said, noting that the Salvation Army's shelter took in twice as many men and women and three times as many children last year than in 1996.