Kettle drive is looking for a lift

Friday, Nov. 26, 1999 | 11:03 a.m.

The U.S. Postal Service may have closed a door on the Salvation Army this year, but the charity has found that many windows of opportunity have opened for its ailing bell-ringing kettle drive as a result.

The postal service this year became the latest among numerous businesses and agencies to ban the traditional bell ringers with their red kettles from their entrances. The Salvation Army collectors aren't welcome anymore at area malls, the Fremont Street Experience and other venues.

The number of available locations for the organization has been reduced from a high of about 150 sites five years ago to 57 approved locations this year.

Donations have dropped accordingly. Since a record year in 1992, when $320,000 was collected to help the poor, donations to the kettles dropped last year to about half that amount.

To add to the organization's problems, it doesn't have enough people to staff even those 57 sites. Just 34 people -- mostly homeless -- had taken the $5.75 per hour bell-ringing jobs by the first day of the drive last Friday.

But Sumner Dodge, spokesman for the Clark County chapter of the Salvation Army, says his organization is counting its blessings.

"We lost the post offices this year, but the publicity generated over that has helped us," he said. "This year, for the first time ever, our bell-ringers have been invited into the Forum Shops at Caesars and into the shops at the Stratosphere Tower.

"Also, for the first three days of the drive this year we collected $16,213, which is up $2,590 from the first three days of collections in 1998."

Last year was the bleakest for the kettle drive in many years as just $168,000 was collected, down $5,000 from 1997. But that has been the trend since 1992.

With such diminishing returns, the charitable agency has had to scramble to fund its programs. And while money is hard to come by, the one commodity the organization never runs short on is poor people in need.

Last year, the organization gave 17,455 new toys to needy children at Christmas and served 2,050 holiday dinners to the poor. By comparison, in 1992 the Salvation Army gave 8,499 new toys to needy children and served 1,311 holiday dinners to the poor.

Reasons for the decline in the number of bell-ringing locations include anti-vagrancy ordinances passed in recent years and liability concerns of large corporations.

Officials for major companies have said they worry about being sued by organizations that are banned from collecting on their properties, especially if exceptions are made for the Salvation Army.

As a result, area malls that prohibit the kettle drives inside their buildings allow the bell-ringers on the public sidewalk outside the malls.

Company officials say it is wrong to label them as bad guys for such decisions.

"In 1998 there was a change in the wording of the U.S. codes regarding solicitation of alms, and it prohibits everyone," said Vic Fenimore, a Las Vegas spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, noting that it is not his agency's job to be the charity police and determine whether one organization is better than another. "It is out of our hands."

The kettle tradition began in 1891 when a Salvation Army captain in San Francisco took a big empty cooking kettle to Market Street, where people tossed money into it to help the poor. A few years later, a Salvation Army worker started ringing a bell to attract attention to her kettle drive and the tradition was born, Dodge said.

But with less scrupulous fund-raising methods coming along in recent times, the Salvation Army feels it is being unfairly penalized in efforts to guard against the scams.

"We are caught up in the whole mess," Dodge said. "We got kicked off of Fremont Street so the city could get rid of panhandlers. We are banned from along the Strip because the county wants to get rid of the pornography (escort service handouts)."

The lack of available bell-ringers can be blamed on the good economy.

"We have to compete with everyone else out there for temporary workers," Dodge said. "People are just getting better seasonal work for better money.

"We hire people we believe are trustworthy, honest and dependable. And owners of businesses who allow us to use their locations don't mind us hiring the homeless, but they want them to look presentable when they stand outside their businesses. Certainly they are entitled to that."