Salvation Army rejoices at mystery donations
SALVATION ARMY HAS BEEN GETTING BUNDLES OF BILLS AT CHRISTMAS FROM ‘ST. GRAND’
Afew years ago, wads of cash started to pop up in red Salvation Army kettles in Minnesota. And those wads of cash all looked the same, Julie Borgen said.
“Starting in 2011, we were getting donations in our kettles, which were a bundle of 10 crisp, new $100 bills,” said Borgen. “And over the past several years, that tradition has continued.”
In fact, the local Salvation Army believes that by now the donations have totalled more than US$ 90,000. And through it all, the donor has also continued to remain anonymous, choosing to slip his or her gifts in the kettle instead of attaching a name to it, said Borgen, the media relations director for the Salvation Army Northern Division.
Whoever they are, though, at least they have a cool nickname: “St. Grand.”
“We love it. We think it’s a lot of fun. We always want to honour our donors’ wishes, so we’ve had a lot of people ask us, ‘Could we figure out who it is?’ And our response to that is always, ‘If this person wants to be anonymous, that’s great with us and we respect that. We just greatly appreciate the donation,’” Borgen said. “But it’s kind of fun. Because it’s always a little bit of a surprise.”
In 2015, St. Grand’s donation amount increased, to 11 $100 bills at a time, Borgen said.
The number went up again this year: The Salvation Army has received five $ 1,200 donations in the Twin Cities area, plus one of $1,000, in crisp $100s.
It’s hard to tell if that $1,000 donation was from St. Grand, or perhaps from a copycat philanthropist, Borgen said.
“We really don’t know that they’re all the same person,” Borgen said. “We’re assuming it probably is because the method of giving is similar. It’s very possible that someone else thought the idea was great and jumped in and did it as well.”
The red kettle tradition dates to the 1890s, when Salvation Army Capt. Joseph McFee “was distraught because so many poor individuals in San Francisco were going hungry,” according to the group, which was founded by a Methodist minister and is now one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States.
“During the holiday season, he resolved to provide a free Christmas dinner for the destitute and poverty-stricken. He only had one major hurdle to overcome — funding the project.”
“Where would the money come from, he wondered. He lay awake nights, worrying, thinking, pray- ing about how he could find the funds to fulfil his commitment of feeding 1,000 of the city’s poorest individuals on Christmas Day. As he pondered the issue, his thoughts drifted back to his sailor days in Liverpool, England. He remembered how at Stage Landing, where the boats came in, there was a large, iron kettle called ‘Simpson’s Pot’ into which passersby tossed a coin or two to help the poor.
“The next day Captain McFee placed a similar pot at the Oakland Ferry Landing at the foot of Market Street. Beside the pot, he placed a sign that read, ‘Keep the Pot Boiling.’ He soon had the money to see that the needy people were properly fed at Christmas.”
The idea moved east, to Boston, then New York City, and eventually went international.
Now, as The Washington Post’s Abby Phillip once noted, “the Salvation Army’s bell- ringing foot soldiers are virtually synonymous with the holiday season.”
Contributions to the kettles — which number in the millions each year — “enable the organization to continue its year-round efforts at helping those who would otherwise be forgotten,” the Salvation Army says.
Kettles are locked and marked with a number that indicates the location they came from, Borgen said. At the end of the bell-ringing day, staffers collect the kettles, which are taken to a secure facility. Volunteers open the kettles and count all the money every night.
“And so what they have discovered, these particular donations, the reasons they stand out, is because the money’s all bundled together, so it comes in one bundle into the kettle,” she said. “So as they’re counting through, they’ll find this pack of $100 bills.”
That’s what happened to Kathie Poppen, who was sorting through a large donation bag in December, 2015. She and her husband are volunteers for the Salvation Army in the Twin Cities, and have been for years.
Poppen was working in the secure counting location when she noticed something at the bottom of a large bag. She pulled out the bills and began to sift through them, and realized one looked like a $100.
“And when I pulled it out, I went, ‘No, it’s more than a $100 bill,’” she said. “And as I was going through it, I went, ‘Oh my gosh, there are 11 of these $100 bills.’”
Volunteers who sort the bills very rarely find $ 100s, Poppen said; it’s mostly just ones and twenties.
So as Poppen was counting and got to about the third $100, she knew something was up.
“I sort of elbowed my husband, who was sitting next to me, and I went, ‘Arlyn, look at this,’” she said. “And as I started to count, he goes, ‘Yeah, Kath, I think you got 11 of ’em.’ ”
The find, Poppen said, made her feel lucky herself.
“It’s pretty special when you find one,” Poppen said.
I WENT, ‘OH MY GOSH, THERE ARE 11 OF THESE $100 BILLS.’