The Red Kettles will start appearing in Rochester at the beginning of November, but you are able to donate online right now.
Believe some counties new this morning on daybreak.
The salvation army is on a mission to rescue christmas this year by starting its red kettle campaign earlier than normal.
But it's going to take the support from everyone to make that happen as they're serving a lot more people this year because of the pandemic.
Kimt news 3's madelyne watkins breaks down how much money the rochester salvation army is hoping to collect this season.
Madelyne... what's that magic number?/// brooke.
Before we get to that number... i'm going to tell you how much they raised last year to kind of put things into perspective.
Let's take a look.
"swoosh, cha ching" so if you look at the first two numbers here... you can see the salvation army went way past their goal last year and raised over a million dollars.
I'm told they budgeted for a 300 thousand dollar decrease in donations this year... making it a goal of 960 thousand dollars.
Major bob mueller says nationwide, they're projecting to serve 150 percent more people this christmas season because of the pandemic.
There are two main reasons for that.
One ?
"*- there's currently a coin shortage because no one is carrying them right now due to concerns of spreading germs. as we all know... a lot of people's loose change gets donated into the kettles as they're heading into stores.
And that brings me to point two ?
"*?
"* some of the stores where the kettle bells are normally camped out at have closed their doors so major mueller says he's not sure exactly how many kettles they'll set out this year.
One thing that remains the same though is their passion for helping out families "this is the first time in 130 years of bell ringing that the salvation army launched its campaign this early in the season.we're continuing to rescue christmas for others as we always have been with the help of volunteers and donors.
But this year is different.
We have a pandemic, we're going to be doing our biggest christmas fundraiser campaign in the midst of a pandemic."
Something the salvation army started last year was a tap pay option through apple pay or google pay.
That way if you don't have any cash on you but still want to donate... you can!
Major mueller tells me it never really kicked off last year, but he's expecting a lot more people will take advantage of it this holiday thank you madelyne.
You can expect to see the red kettles in rochester at the beginning of november.
Until then... major mueller encourages you to donate online if you're
The Salvation Army is lending a helping hand this holiday season
