Salvation Army doing well with cashless Eastern Iowa shoppers

A fistful of small change here, a fistful there, a few dollar bills - it all adds up.

“I usually have bills, but I don't have any with me,” Karen Louk, 59, of Cedar Rapids, said. “So I dug into the bottom of my purse.”

What Louk found went into the Salvation Army kettle in front of the Hy-Vee Foods store on Collins Road NE in Cedar Rapids on an afternoon last week.

People may carry less cash these days, but many still dig up something for the red kettle. “You have to,” Louk said. “There's a lot of need.”

In a holiday season of hard times, local Salvation Army officials cautiously are optimistic residents who can spare a few bucks will help meet the heaviest need for help they've ever seen.

“So far we're pretty much on par, it looks like, with last year,” Capt. Terry Smith said.

Smith, Salvation Army commander in Iowa City, said locals already had dropped $56,500 in 15 kettles through the end of November. If that holds, the Iowa City drive should meet its $225,000 goal - the same for the past three years.

“Last year we didn't raise the goal due to the flood,” Smith said. “We didn't know how that would effect giving. And this year we didn't raise the goal because of the economy.”

The kettles raise 52 percent of the organization's $425,000 annual budget.

“It's critical,” Smith said. “If we don't raise the money over these five weeks here, we have to make decisions about the level of services through the year.”

In Cedar Rapids, the drive had raised $195,000 through Thursday, Mindy Kayser, Salvation Army director of development and communications, said. That was the most recent figure available, she said Monday.

The $640,000 campaign goal is a 9 percent increase over last year and about 40 percent of the annual budget.

As debit cards and online shopping give people fewer opportunities to walk around with extra bills, the Salvation Army also takes donations online and at the office (see box). “We've kind of seen the trend in recent years where kettles used to bring in more than those other things, and now that has reversed a little,” Kayser said.

Bell ringers in about 200 cities are equipped this year with readers to scan debit and credit cards, a development Kayser is following. “It's still kind of a new thing, and part of the issue is with the cold weather the battery life is pretty short,” she said.

Veteran bell ringer Neil Orthner, 66, of Mount Vernon said many passers-by lately tell him they've donated by check this year, “just to let me know. They don't want to pass the kettle up.”

“Even in this electronic age, there's still lots of cash in people's pockets,” Jeff Selfridge, 43, of Marion, said while manning the kettle at Hy-Vee with Jill Olsen of Cedar Rapids. They volunteered their afternoon through the Marion East Cedar Rapids Rotary Club. Volunteers staff most locations, but both Salvation Army centers also hire bell ringers to ensure peak hour coverage.

Much of this year's proceeds are spent by Christmas. Smith said Iowa City's 150 holiday meal baskets were gone in three days; signup usually runs a week or more.

Kayser said need has increased. “Food pantry visits in some months more than tripled, while requests for financial help with rent and utility bills doubled. The flood is far from over for many families,” she said.