Havre Salvation Army's 2022 Red Kettle falls well short of funding goal

Between the harsh December weather and an aging volunteer base, Havre Salvation Army saw a significantly lower amount of money come in during the 2022 Red Kettle Campaign, the main funding source of their 2023 budget.

Havre Salvation Army Director Trina Crawford said they brought in $31,000 this year, $29,000 of which they can use after covering costs, well short of their $38,000 goal and a noticeable drop from the $36,000 in 2021 and the numbers they've seen over the last five years generally.

Crawford said this shortfall meant they won't be able to help as many people as years previous, and that they may not be able to lend the same amount of help to the people that they do serve, which is going to make 2023 a tough year.

"It's a really big challenge," she said.

The other effect the shortfall will have, she said, is that the community will see more pleas for donations this year compared to previous years.

She said it is possible that they could make up the difference if enough people donated during the year, and she would be thrilled if that would happen, but for now they are planning to work with the numbers they have.

Admittedly, Crawford said, the goal they set this time around was higher than previous years and an ambitious goal that would have let them help more people, but even accounting for that, these results are problematic.

However, she said, the cause of the shortfall is obvious and one they are going to try to address for next year.

She said the volunteer base for the Red Kettle Campaign is getting older and a lot of them just can't physically do it any more, which left the kettles unmanned and bells unrung for a substantial amount of time this year.

Their most successful spot for gathering donations, Havre's Walmart, didn't have a bell-ringer there for nearly two weeks.

Between all of their locations for bell-ringing, Crawford said, they had 624 available hours for volunteers, but only during 379 of those hours were the kettles manned, and with the weather the way it was they were probably lucky to get that.

She said the uncharacteristically low temperatures made a lot of that time unusable, as it would be dangerous to have the bell-ringers out regardless of age, so it may have been a problematic year even if they had more people.

Crawford said her organization needs to look at getting help from younger people, but she realizes that that may be tricky.

Most of their volunteers, she said, are retired and have time to spare, but younger people tend to have jobs, and school, and any number of things that limit their time.

She said she knows there are young people with free time on their hands, but given their circumstances, getting more volunteers from that demographic might be tricky.

Crawford also said they are looking into the possibility of getting help from businesses and similar agencies to see if they might be willing to spare some time as well.

As for the more immediate issue of their 2023 shortfall, she said, it is possible that it could be made up with enough community support.

She said the donations they get through the mail during the year typically cover operational expenses, but once those are paid for, any excess goes back into their relief efforts, so if they have a good year of donations they may be able to make up at least part of the gap.

She said people looking to make donations can go to https://havre.salvationarmy.org/havre_service_center/, but if they are out of the Havre zip code it might be better to mail donations.

Crawford said despite the issue of donations and volunteer shortages, the end of the year wasn't all bad by a long shot.

She said they got a significant amount of engagement with their Angel Tree and Adopt A Family drives and were able to give gifts to 178 in-need children this year, which is a higher number than they've seen since the pandemic, at least.

"I'm really grateful for that," she said.

Crawford said she also wanted to extend a thank you to the local Lions Club, Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club, Knights of Columbus, District 4 Human Resources Development Council, Havre High School Skills Program, and all the other groups and organizations that helped them out this past season.