Los Angeles (CNN) — The Salvation Army is wrapping up its Red Kettle program for the year and hopes to top last year’s record $142 million collected nationwide. The money collected through the Red Kettles, seen only at Christmastime, helps fund all of the Salvation Army’s programs and ministries for the entire year.
“I call it the church where the rubber meets the road,” said Lt. Keri Rudd. She and her husband, Lt. Eric Rudd, are ministers at a Salvation Army church in the Los Angeles area.
Rudd said what many people don’t realize is that the Salvation Army is a 365-day-a-year evangelical Christian Church. “But because we do so many social services and family services, people think of us as just that,” she said.
The Salvation Army was founded in London in 1865 by William Booth. Rudd said the story goes that one morning at church some homeless people walked in and the parishioners didn’t want them there. So Booth decided he’d start his own church and serve what Rudd calls the friendless and the lowliest of the lowly.
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The Red Kettle program started in San Francisco in the early 1900s by Salvation Army Capt. Joseph McFee.
“He wanted to serve Christmas dinner, but he didn’t have any money,” Rudd said. He had a bucket. It was on the docks. And as the sailors would come in, they’d put money in the bucket,” she said. McFee realized he could use the money to feed the hungry and the vision.
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Robyn Smith, a 30-year-old unemployed, single-mother of three, came by a recent toy distribution event at Rudd’s church to pick up items for her kids’ Christmas gifts.
“My son got a Spiderman bike. Spiderman is his favorite thing in the whole world, and he’s going to absolutely love it. I wouldn’t be able to afford those. I actually priced them, and they were $80 at Wal-mart,” Smith said.
She received other toys and items, including a box of food for her family’s Christmas dinner.
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