Salvation Army’s Christmas Kettle targets $20 million

The Salvation Army kicked off its annual Christmas Kettle Appeal on November 3 with the goal of raising $20 million for youth development and other projects in the coming year.

Major Nana Boakye-Agyemang, divisional commander of The Salvation Army, told The Gleaner on Monday that the charity is looking to target children and adolescents from Corporate Area communities such as Rae Town, Havendale, and downtown Kingston, including North Parade, through after-school programmes.

“We want to equip some of the facilities that we have not been using at the moment with Internet [and] laptops to assist ... students in the community ... who do not have access to the Internet to do their homework and all that,” he said, noting that the facilities would be supervised by volunteers.

The organisation also hopes to use a portion of the donated funds to advance another goal of playing its part in helping to keep kids off the streets.

“Our observation is that some of them come from school, and they stay with their parents who are usually vendors, and they stay with them on the road until night when they are going home and that affects their academic performance. So, we want to have this place for them where they can spend the evening doing their work under the supervision of responsible people,” Boakye-Agyemang said.

The Christmas Kettle drive, which is being executed with a more than two-decades-long partnership with Scotiabank Jamaica, will maintain last year’s theme, ‘Donate Today – Be A Champion of Hope’. It is banking on the generosity of the public, hoping people will drop donations into the red kettles manned by volunteers at various locations islandwide.

Boakye-Agyemang said the usual food hampers, financed by part proceeds, will be distributed to the less fortunate in December.

He told The Gleaner that The Salvation Army is also seeking to sustain its social programmes in three residential homes for children – the Windsor Lodge Children’s Home, the Hanbury Home for Children, and the Nest Children’s Home – which, together, house more than 100 children.

“This is a programme that is very impactful, and we depend on the public also in sustaining this programme so that the children will have all their needs provided for, in their education, in their transformation, and in their emotional [and] social development and all that which is a part of the programme,” he said.

The divisional commander urged service clubs and other volunteer organisations across Jamaica to assist The Salvation Army in its collection efforts.

“Persons are willing to contribute; however, not having all the locations manned by volunteers is costing us a lot of would-have-been donations. So, that’s one of our downfalls,” he lamented.

“So, we are extending our invitation to persons to give us a call and volunteer their time,” he said.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com