The Salvation Army’s annual Red Kettle campaign during the Christmas season in Aurora, Naperville and the Tri-Cities area has once again produced disappointing results.
After the official collection ended Dec. 24, representatives of local Salvation Army units contacted a few days later reported that financial goals had not been met this year, a worrying trend that has lasted for nearly half a decade.
Salvation Army Major Corps Officer Joaquin Rangel, who oversees the Aurora Salvation Army Center which serves the Naperville and Aurora areas, spoke on Boxing Day and said that “with the exception of coins, all cash has been counted.”
“We’re nowhere near our goal. The reason we can talk now is because the bank is counting our change but we’re counting the bills and until the 24th – that’s the last day of bells – we have a total of $109,838 in total,” Rangel said. “I guess we’ll have about $1,000 extra in change.”
Last November, Rangel said the goal this year again was to raise $200,000, the same as in 2024, adding that this was the fourth year the group had failed to meet its goal.
Officials have tried to offer donation options, including a QR code at bell stations for those without cash, a strategy that so far has not had the hoped-for impact.
Meanwhile, at the Tri-City Salvation Army, which serves St. Charles, Batavia and Geneva, collections during the Red Kettle campaign were also lower than last year’s totals as well as the budgeted amount officials hoped to receive this year.
“We did about what we did last year. We’re sitting at $124,000. Last year it was $127,000, so we’re looking at about 85 percent of our goal that we set for this year, which was $150,000,” Tri-City Salvation Army Lieutenant Joe Alvarez said Monday. “We are going to have to be extremely careful, budget wisely, avoid unnecessary spending and continue to be frugal.”
Alvarez pointed out that Red Kettle’s effort “is our biggest fundraiser in terms of paying the bills here and keeping things open and taking care of what little staff we have.”
“If we need to buy groceries, we’re lucky because food banks allow us to buy food for pennies on the pound, but we also incur other expenses,” he said.
Rangel said that in light of the low donation totals for the Red Kettle campaign, new fundraising options need to be explored.
“We need to find another way in terms of collecting and getting donations and maybe look at doing a fundraiser during the summer or something like that,” Rangel said. “We have to do something but I don’t know what yet.”
Aside from one weekend of bad weather, Rangel said the main factor in the low donation totals during this year’s Red Kettle campaign was “the lack of bell ringers.”
“In the last two weeks of our season, we can see the generosity of people, so I would say that even with the economy, people want to support not only us, but also the interests of their community,” he said. “In my case, we have a good 20 stations to call and about 16 to 18 of them are two doors down, which means we could have over 30 workers, but we only have a dozen workers, which means over half the stations were empty. »
Alvarez also criticized the lack of help, emphasizing that his region will have to continue to rely on more volunteers rather than paid bell ringers.
“We have a number of very loyal people who have been with us for years who are paid as bell ringers and we fully intend to have them come back if they want to work in 2026,” Alvarez said. “We just don’t have enough registrations and there have been a lot of days, a lot of teams that have been left open.
“One of the good things for us is that we continue to receive donation checks throughout the year, but this collection will still impact things here at our facility,” Alvarez said.
Rangel said he may look to “other groups in the community or maybe businesses” to help with volunteers next year.
“Maybe there could be a volunteer day at their company where the company would still pay them to go work somewhere and maybe they would choose us to ring the bell,” he said. “Perhaps we should promote the volunteer aspect in the community.
“Going forward, we’re going to have to further reduce financial aid to help pay rent and other costs,” Rangel said. “Due to getting food at a decent price from the Northern Illinois Food Bank, the cost of food will have no effect, but financial assistance for rent and utilities will definitely be affected.”
Alvarez said there will be more aggressive marketing of the Red Kettle campaign in 2026.
“Next year we are going to focus on our social media presence and our presence to generate more interest,” he said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
