While you were out and about shopping this Christmas season, as you finished paying for your items at Canadian Tire, you likely saw Linda Frank with a Salvation Army kettle between the two sets of doors heading out of the store.
And if you’re good with faces, you’ll remember that you’ve seen her there before.
Frank has been volunteering as a kettle person for nine years now as her way of giving back to the community.
“Because I just think it’s the right thing to do and in your retirement years, pick a cause and give back to the community,” she says.
Frank likes being at Canadian Tire because she sees lots of families, many of whom always make a point of putting some coins in and she will thank them, saying that they’re helping another family get presents and a turkey dinner because not everyone is as lucky as we are.
When her children were growing up, the family would hold garage sales and the children would help her so afterward, she would give them some of the money and they would put it in the Salvation Army kettle.
She believed it was important for them to learn to help others.
“They just say ‘Mom, it’s a great thing you’re doing,’” says Frank about what her children say about her volunteering now.
And she intends to keep helping out at the kettles as long as she can. Highlights of her years at the kettle include lots of older people sharing what the Salvation Army means to them.
One old fellow was in Europe during the war and said the Red Cross had handmade socks that it sold to soldiers but the Salvation Army came and gave them socks for no charge.
Another man said the Salvation Army carollers would set up on his lawn and sing and he didn’t find out until he was an adult that his dad had supported the Sally Ann for a number of years so that’s why the carollers would make a special trip to his front lawn.
And the money that’s collected locally stays here for Salvation Army work.