The Salvation Army’s annual Red Kettle campaign during the Christmas season in Aurora and Naperville and the Tri-Cities area again produced some disappointing results.
After the official collection ended on Dec. 24, representatives of local Salvation Army units contacted a few days later reported that financial goals were not met this year, a disturbing trend that is nearing nearly half a decade in length.
Salvation Army Major Corps Officer Joaquin Rangel, who oversees the Aurora Salvation Army center that serves the Naperville and Aurora areas, spoke the day after Christmas and said “other than coins all of the cash has been counted.”
“We’re short of our goal. The reason we can talk now is the bank counts our change but we count the bills and up to the 24th – that’s the last day of ringing – we have a total of $109,838 altogether,” Rangel said. “My guess is we’ll have about another $1,000 or so in change.”
Back in November, Rangel said the goal again this year was to raise $200,000, the same as 2024, adding that this was the fourth year the group has not met its goal.
Officials have tried to offer options for donating including a QR code at bell ringer stations for those not carrying cash, a strategy that, so far, hasn’t has the impact that was hoped for.
Meanwhile, at the Tri-City Salvation Army, which serves St. Charles, Batavia and Geneva, collections during the Red Kettle drive were likewise below last year’s totals as well as the budgeted amount officials hoped to receive this year.
“We made just 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% of our goal that we had set for this year which was $150,000,” said Joe Alvarez, a lieutenant at the Tri-City Salvation Army, on Monday. “We’re going to have to be extremely careful and budget wisely and avoid any unnecessary expenses and continue to be frugal.”
Alvarez emphasized that the Red Kettle effort “is our biggest fundraiser in terms of paying the bills here and keeping things open and to take care of the little staff that we do have.”
“If we need to purchase some food items, we’re fortunate as the food banks allow us to purchase food for pennies on the pound but we do incur other expenses as well,” he said.
Rangel said in light of the low donation totals for the Red Kettle drive, new options for fundraising need to be examined.
“We have to figure out another way in terms of our collection and getting donations and maybe look at doing a fundraiser during the summer or something,” Rangel said. “We need to do something but I don’t know what yet.”
Other than one weekend where the weather was bad, Rangel said the biggest factor for the low donation total during the Red Kettle drive this year centers “on the lack of bell ringers.”
“The last couple of weeks of our season we can see the generosity of people, so I would say even with the economy people want to support not just us but interests in their community,” he said. “In my case, we have a good 20 spots to ring and about 16 to 18 of them are two doors, so that means we could have over 30 workers, but we only have about a dozen workers, meaning that more than half the stations were empty.”
Alvarez likewise blamed not having enough help, noting that his region will have to continue to rely on more volunteers versus paid bell ringers.
“We do have a number of very loyal people that have been with us for years that are paid as bell ringers and we have every intention of bringing them back if they want to work in 2026,” Alvarez said. “We just don’t have enough sign-ups and there were plenty of days, plenty of shifts that remained open.
“One of the good things for us is that we do continue to receive donation checks throughout the year but this collection is still going to impact things here at our facility,” Alvarez said.
Rangel said he might look to “other groups in the community or maybe companies” to help out with volunteers next year.
“Maybe there can be a volunteer day with their company where the company will still pay them to go out and work somewhere and maybe they will choose us to do the bell ringing,” he said. “We need to promote the volunteer aspect in the community perhaps.
“Looking ahead, we’re going to have to again cut financial assistance when it comes to help with rents and other costs,” Rangel said. “Because of getting food at a decent price from the Northern Illinois Food Bank, the food cost won’t have any effect but definitely the financial assistance with rent and utilities, those will be impacted.”
Alvarez said there will be more aggressive marketing of the Red Kettle campaign in 2026.
“Next year, we are going to focus on being more out there in the social media outlets and have more of a presence to generate more interest,” he said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
