During this season of giving, the Salvation Army is once again accepting donations for their annual food and toy drive. Kelli Edwards is one of the organizers for the drive and has been doing so for 11 years spoke to TNN today.
“ [So far this year], we are short on girls’ toys, but food items have been steadily and consistently coming in at a good rate,” Ms. Edwards said.
“From my observation the need has increased compared to last year. Last year, the Salvation Army gave grocery vouchers to at least 1600 families, and we will surpass that number this year,” says Ms.Edwards.
They have three main distribution days this year, the first one mainly reserved for agencies such as Child and Family Services, MWI, Residential Treatment and public schools to name a few.
“ Our second distribution day is for seniors only, and I have almost 400 names on that list for this year,” Ms. Edwards explained. “ Our third distribution day is for the greater population and currently, that number is also close to 400 families.”
We works with other organizations and engages in a process of elimination to ensure that every family is served, but also that no family is duplicated.
“ We want to ensure that everyone gets something at Christmas, rather than some getting more than one thing and the people who really need it not receiving anything,” she said.
They will be at the Botanical Gardens on Friday December 17, Monday December 20 and Wednesday December 22 from 9 a.m. to approximately 5 p.m.
In order to collect their bags, people must bring their pick-up slip, a valid form of ID and wait to be processed.
“ I would like to thank all of our corporate and individual donors who helped donate to this organization and cause,” Ms. Edwards said. “ We have individual families to employees who pitch in together, anonymous donors, to everyone in between. We look forward to receiving donations next year too.”—————————————————————————————————-Any content which is considered unsuitable, unlawful, or offensive, includes personal details, advertises or promotes products, services or websites, or repeats previous comments will be removed.
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