It seemed an impossible goal: one volunteer, with one kettle, raising $15,000 for the Salvation Army in St. Charles, this holiday season. The bells and kettles had been collected and retired for the season at the Salvation Army Corps Office there Tuesday night. The guy they call 'Kettle Man Sam' had done it: but not by bell alone.
Sam not only rings. Sam sings.
With our white Christmas melting away, the sights and sounds of the season were already fading.
But Sam George was ready for an encore.
'Kettle Man Sam is a guitar playing, record-breaking, Salavation Army volunteer.
Of all the kettles he'd been helping to put away every night, his was always among the most full:
Donation stories stick in his mind. There's the woman from Christmas Eve .
"I was in front of Wal-Mart on Veteran's Parkway," he recalled.
He was explaining to a young woman how the money really helped people turn their lives around.
"This young lady cut me off. She couldn't have been 30. She was with her husband Christmas shopping. She said, 'yeah, we were one of those families -- the Salvation Army -- we wouldn't have survived without them'. She was proceeding to put four $20 bills and a gang of $1 bills into the kettle. I about lost it," Sam said, choking up.
Then, there was the teenager not long after he set up his stand.
"I actually had a teenager once, 5-6 weeks ago at wal-mart, he goes, 'sir, i'm sorry, this is all i have, i feel bad, and he drops the change out of his pocket into the kettle. I made sure the hurry up and let him know, change is our friend. It's feeding families because my average kettle every day will feed 4-5 families for a week."
He was astounded by such generosity in the middle of a recession.
The money goes a along way: helping to stock the food pantry that serves 24,000 meals-a-year to the needy in St. Charles. It helps people like, Sam. He, too, has a story.
When alcohol abuse led to trouble, even jail time, he said financial help and counseling from the Salvation Army, brought him back.
"Not just clean up my life but to use the abilities that i was just throwing away," he said.
Among those gifts are his music and his sense of caring; both on prominent display at his kettle stand, usually set up in front a St. Charles area Wal-Mart.
"It tells us in the bible, 'train up a child in the way that they will go and when they're older they won't depart from it'," said Captain Laura Key of the St. Charles Salvation Army. "And [Sam] knew the way, he just strayed off."
He said neither the ringing nor the singing kept him going. The people did.
"10 or 15 folks will walk past you, coming and going, in and out. Maybe you won't get a donation from any of those folks; maybe my spirits might go down just a bit more," he said. "Then, just one person can come up and change it all. They'll tell you how the Salvation Army helped their family...I could be beaten up, feeling terrible, physically, before I get to that kettle stand at 9, 10, in the morning or 11. But once I get out there, I don't feel tired ! I think lives are getting turned around... I wouldn't miss it. It's a two-month long shower of blessings."
With Sam's help, the St. Charles Salvation Army has already surpassed its fundraising goal of $104,000 for the holiday season; taking in $110,000 just from the kettles so far.
Along with all those who donated and stopped to sing with him, Sam credited his grandparents, who were former Salvation Army officers involved in the first ever, Tree of Lights Campaign in St. Louis.
Sam hoped he inspired others to volunteer next year. He said if the Salvation Army could fully staff its close to three dozen kettles in St. Charles, it would raise 2 to 3 times more money.
Source:
No comments:
Post a Comment