The Salvation Army Kicking off for the Holiday Season

The Salvation Army is changing lives this holiday season.

Today, the salvation army had their first annual kick-off for the Red Kettle Campaign. Employee in charge, George Bates says he hopes the kick off will let the community know how much they appreciate donations.

"We just wanted to make the community aware that we are beginning our kettle effort, that we use this money throughout the year, I mean, its our one big fundraiser that we do, every year. So we just want the community support, we want them to know that we’re out."

Bates says The Salvation Army is in need of many more volunteers to help gather donations this year.

"It’s a crucial year though, because as everyone knows, we’ve been advertising, we are in debt. So, but, we wanna keep the community happy so it’s balancing that. This year is very crucial though that we have a good effort. There’s about 4,500 hours that go into this volunteer hours. We are really, really, really asking for volunteers this year."

The salvation army is over 150 thousand dollars in debt, while most of the donations this year will be going to help people a portion will also go towards paying down the army’s debt.